Grab your wagons and oxen, and get ready to ford a river: A movie adaptation of the popular grade school computer game Oregon Trail is in development at Apple.
The studio landed the film pitch, still in early development, that has Will Speck and Josh Gordon attached to direct and produce. EGOT winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul will provide original music and produce via their Ampersand production banner. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that the movie will feature a couple of original musical numbers in the vein of Barbie.
The Lucas Bros. (Judas and the Black Messiah) and Max Reisman are set to pen the screenplay about the game that is meant to mimic 19th-century pioneer times, following a covered wagon train heading west. Created in 1971, the game reached cult status among American grade schoolers by the 1990s as one of the first educational computer games allowed in schools — and for its hilariously dark storylines filled with broken arms, typhoid and dysentery.
Caroline Fraser will produce for HarperCollins Productions (HarperCollins owns the rights to the video game franchise) along with Kevin K. Vafi.
Speck, Gordon, Pasek, and Paul recently worked together on Sony feature Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. Speck and Gordon, repped by CAA and Sloane Offer, are also behind films Blades of Glory and Office Christmas Party.
Pasek and Paul recently earned an Emmy for their work on the last season of Only Murders in the Buidling. They are repped by CAA, Kraft-Engel Management and Schreck Rose.
The Lucas Bros., who received an Oscar nom for their screenplay for Judas and the Black Messiah, are represented by Fourth Wall Management, UTA and Hansen Jacobson. Reisman is represented by Fourth Wall Management, UTA and Jackoway Austen.
