Legendary Pictures, the company behind the likes of the Dark Knight movies and Watchmen, has been busy working on a screen version of the popular Mass Effect game. Now Variety reports that they’ve hired screenwriter Morgan Davis Foehl to write the script, taking over from Mark Protosevich (Thor, I Am Legend), who wrote the first draft.
The video game is set in the year 2183, and follows a space commander who leads an elite team on a mission to destroy a deadly alien race. The mechanised aliens wipe out everything in the galaxy once every 50,000 years. The movie isn’t expected to follow the video game’s exact story, but will be set in that universe.
The latest installment of the video game series, Mass Effect 3, sold over 1.5 million copies in its first week of release back in March, earning more than $200 million since its debut. While videogame to movie adaptations don’t have a great reputation, Legendary is keen to get this one right.
Morgan Davis Foehl previously served as an assistant editor on the FX series Rescue Me and on the Adam Sandler comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. His screenplay Whatever Gets You Through The Night landed on the Black List in 2009.