'Werewolves Within', Based On Popular Game, Is Being Adapted Into A Movie

If you've participated in a board game night over the past few years, you've probably played your fair share of Werewolf, a hidden role party game in which each player is secretly assigned a role – either a werewolf or a villager. As night falls in the game, the werewolves murder the residents of an old village called Gallowston, and when the villagers wake up, they must identify the werewolves among them before they've all been wiped out.

The concept was adapted into a virtual reality game called Werewolves Within a few years ago, and Ubisoft has announced that a Werewolves Within movie is currently in development.

Several years ago, /Film's Peter Sciretta listed Werewolf among the board games that Hollywood should adapt into films, and now it's finally happening. Here's a trailer for the 2016 VR game Werewolves Within to give you a better idea of how it all works:

I've never played the VR version, but having dabbled in several virtual reality experiences in the past, I find myself doubting that the technology is good enough at this point to fully capture the same subtle cues that you'd see if you were in the same physical space with other people. (Unless you were all decked out in full-body haptic suits, Ready Player One-style, and there was somehow a camera system that relayed all of your eye movements, which are so important in a game like this.) But there's clearly some serious potential in this concept for a movie version, so I'm interested to see how Ubisoft handles this.

News about this project was actually revealed back in early November, but it looks like it escaped the attention of the movie blog sphere until now. Here's the announcement video, which also reveals that a Child of Light TV series is on the way:

Up-and-coming writer Mishna Wolff, a part of Ubisoft's Women's Film and Television Fellowship initiative, will write the screenplay. In the video, Wolff describes the movie as a "live-action horror comedy," and explains how she's "tickled by the idea of private justice."

So far, Ubisoft Motion Pictures has only produced the 2016 Assassin's Creed film starring Michael Fassbender, which sadly did not break the video game movie curse. The company is currently developing film adaptations of Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Watch Dogs, Far Cry, Rabbids, and The Division, and there's no word yet on when Werewolves Within might arrive in theaters.