'Firewatch' Movie In The Works From 'Blindspotting' And 'The Guest' Producers
Firewatch, the popular indie video game that was released in 2016, is getting a film adaptation. Snoot Entertainment, the production company behind movies like Blindspotting, The Guest, and You're Next, is now developing a Firewatch movie after the film rights reverted to Campo Santo, the game's original developer. Check out a trailer for the game below.
Firewatch has sold more than 2.5 million copies since it debuted in 2016. Olly Moss, the artist behind some of the most iconic posters in Mondo history, served as the game's art director – he was reportedly responsible for its lighting and color scheme, which gave the game its painterly feel and gave players the sense that they were stepping into an old 1960s ad for U.S. National Parks.
The story is set in 1989 and follows Henry, who recently started a job as a fire lookout in a national forest in Wyoming. As he explores the woods, he uses a walkie-talkie to communicate with his supervisor, Delilah, and things start to get weird as a larger mystery slowly unfurls. Rich Sommer (Mad Men, Glow) voices the character of Henry, while Cissy Jones (Death Stranding, Half-Life: Alyx) voices Delilah. There's no word yet if either of them will be involved with the film version.
The Hollywood Reporter says the production company Good Universe (Neighbors, Blockers, Good Boys) was developing a Firewatch movie several years ago, but when Good Universe was acquired by Lionsgate, the movie rights went back to the game developers at Campo Santo. Now Campo Santo has struck a deal with Snoot Entertainment's Keith Calder and Jess Wu Calder to produce a movie adaptation alongside the game's director, Sean Vanaman, and one of its writers, Jake Rodkin.
"Firewatch is a stunning accomplishment, a beautiful and heartbreaking piece of art," Calder said in a statement. "I'm delighted that Sean and Jake are letting us ruin their perfect video game by turning it into a movie and/or TV show."
One of the big themes of Firewatch is surveillance: the lead characters find themselves incredibly uneasy about the idea that someone could be watching or listening to their conversations. That's obviously a subject that modern audiences can find immensely relatable, though I'd argue that the movies have actually overused the idea of infringing surveillance as a plot device in recent years. If the Firewatch movie retains that aspect of the game, I hope it's able to immerse us into its world and make us care enough about the characters that the surveillance subplot doesn't feel as rote as it has in the handful of big, dumb action movies that have leaned heavily on it since Edward Snowden's revelations about our government's shady and unethical practices of spying on its own citizens.