EA’s Battlefield video game series is getting the TV treatment. Paramount Television is teaming up with Electronic Arts to develop the franchise as a potential television series, TVWise has learned.
Much like Call Of Duty, the Battlefield series of games immerses players in a campaign of all-out war. Dice and EA just announced a new title in the series, Battlefield 1, which is set to be released on Windows PCs, Playstation 4 and Xbox One later this year.
The rights to Battlefield were optioned by Paramount TV and Anonymous Content in a deal with both Dice and Electronic Arts, which was negotiated by Hollywood tenpercentery UTA. There is no writer attached as yet, though Anonymous Content’s Michael Sugar and Ashley Zalta will serve as executive producers. Once Paramount has locked in a scribe, the project will be shopped to the networks.
This is not the first time that an attempt has been made to bring the Battlefield franchise to TV. Back in 2012, Fox developed an adaptation of Battlefield: Bad Company, but the project, which was set up at Sony Pictures Television, never got past the pilot stage. At Paramount it joins a development slate that includes an an adaptation of The Alienist, which is set up at TNT; and an adaptation of Peter Moffatt’s BBC One series The Village.
“Paramount TV actively seeks smart content from all sectors that will resonate with audiences and translate to compelling programming,” said Amy Powell, President of Paramount TV. “EA’s Battlefield has an incredibly dynamic narrative, coupled with a loyal fan base, which will allow us to bring this exciting and unique property to the small screen. We look forward to working with EA and Anonymous Content and thank Michael Sugar for his tenacity in bringing us this exciting project.”
The move to develop Battlefield as a TV series comes as a number of video games publishers have been looking into expanding their IP into the feature film and TV space. There hasn’t been much room on the TV side, but a number of feature films based on video games have been green-lit, such as 20th Century Fox’s Assassins Creed, starring Michael Fassbender; and Warner Bros. and MGM’s Tomb Raider reboot, which is based on the 2013 video game.
