Annapurna Interactive has announced that it’s working on a movie adaptation of last year’s well-received feline sci-fi adventure, Stray. It comes on the heels of the debut film from the publisher’s new animation arm, Nimona, which was a critical success (and well worth a watch if you have access to Netflix).
While it’s still in the “brainstorming” phase, the animation studio seems confident in its understanding of what made BlueTwelve Studio’s game so compelling and how to translate that into a feature film.
“This is a game that’s all about what makes us human, and there are no humans in it,” Annapurna Animation’s Robert Baird told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s a buddy comedy about a cat and a robot, and there’s such a hilarious dynamic. So, there’s comedy inherent in this, but there’s not one human being in this movie. I think it’s one of the reasons why the game was incredibly popular, that you are seeing the world through the point of view of an adorable cat. How did they pull that off, and how are we going to pull that off in the movie? We will, even though sometimes it feels impossible, but we know that’s the essence of the game and the key to telling the story.”
Andrew Millstein, co-lead of Annapurna Animation along with Baird, echoes the suggestion that the studio is putting a lot of thought into how it adapts the game and what it takes away from the game’s popularity, saying, “People engage in the game for a variety of reasons, and I think for us at Annapurna, working with different creative people, it’s a puzzle. What is it about this game that is so popular? Then the question is, how do you adapt a game into longform storytelling that is incredibly respectful to the game itself and the audiences, but then also is film worthy? The process of that is always part of the challenge.”
