EA working with Amazon MGM Studios on The Sims movie

EA has partnered with Amazon MGM Studios to develop a film based on its hit life simulation game The Sims.

Margot Robbie’s production company LuckyChap and Minecraft Movie co-producer Vertigo Entertainment will produce alongside The Sims team.

Loki season one and The Last of Us season two director Kate Herron is on board to direct and co-write the film. She will be joined in writing duties by Briony Redmanm, who has previously worked with Herron on Doctor Who.

No other details of the film were provided in the blog post. EA said to “stay tuned” for updates as it marks The Sims’ 25th anniversary next year.

“Authentic Sims experience”

However, in an interview with Variety, EA VP and general manager of The Sims franchise Kate Gorman said the movie would be “very much rooted in The Sims’ universe”.

“What we want is to have a truly authentic ‘Sims’ experience brought to a theatrical release,” said Gorman.

“So what you’ll see from us is that we have been wanting to get this right. We wanted the right partners and to make an impact the size of something like a ‘Barbie’ movie is exactly what we want.

“And we know there’s so much love and nostalgia, probably beyond what we would even realise, for ‘The Sims’ and so many people like us have played throughout generations.”

1.2 billion hours played in 2024

In a blog post, EA said The Sims franchise had attracted more than 500 million players since the first game’s release back in 2000.

So far in 2024, it claimed players have spent more than 1.2 billion hours playing The Sims 4. Since its release, over one billion Sims 4 creations have been downloaded from the gallery and more than 116 million pieces of content have been uploaded.

Yesterday EA hosted its Investor Day. As well as discussing the future of The Sims, the publisher discussed why user-generated content is key to the publisher’s growth strategy, its AI-powered mobile experiment Project Air, and why AI lies “at the very core” of its business”.