After a dismal 2023, comic-book movies are no longer the cash cows they were thought to be for much of the 21st century. So Hollywood, ever desirous of “known IP” (i.e., “intellectual property” with a sufficiently built-in brand to justify a multimillion-dollar investment), has begun to turn to other sources. 2023’s biggest non-comic-book hits were based on actual, real-world history (Oppenheimer), a popular video-game series (The Super Mario Bros. Movie), and . . . a doll (Barbie).
Now, two of these hit-making elements are coming together. Hollywood Reporter reports that the production company of Margot Robbie (star of Barbie) is gearing up for a film adaptation of the long-running computer-game franchise The Sims. Millennials and Gen Xers may have fond memories of booting up this game on the family PC to build a house, start and oversee a family, and engage in various other domestic shenanigans.
Is there really a movie in this? Most of the game involved setting up your domicile and characters, caring for/controlling them (through a diamond hovering over their heads), and avoiding embarrassing or unsettling outcomes. That could be anything from a chosen character (or “Sim,” speaking in trademark gibberish) getting into an argument, getting your house burgled or your children taken away by social services, or, in extreme cases, death itself (or himself). That is, it’s really just a heightened and humorous form of life itself.
If Barbie or The LEGO Movie (in which one of the producers of this movie was also involved) is any indication, there will probably be some fourth-wall-breaking. Indeed, the Hollywood Reporter speculates as much by noting the similarities between Barbie and The Sims, at least in the abstract:
On some level, Sims shares similar traits as Barbie. The game has no real narrative and features characters going about their lives, albeit controlled by gameplayers. Barbie, as a toy, has no narrative, being a doll with an endless array of careers, controlled by players.
Barbie director Greta Gerwig turned this bare setup into an existential drama and subtle satire masquerading as a bright-pink comedy, one that commingled a fake Barbie world with our real human one. The LEGO Movie likewise broke into the human world. There’s a strong chance a Sims movie does the same. But how?
Fans of The Sims might have an idea. It could be fun to play The Sims as a regular human being might, trying to make things work out as well as they could for the characters you’d created. But the honest among us will admit to having tested the limits of our morality at least once or twice within the inconsequential sandbox of the game’s world. Isn’t it funny to build an opulent house without any security alarms, thereby begging a burglar to show up? And there were even more options for the truly uninhibited. Oh dear, this house has no doors, no windows, and a bunch of plants by the fireplace? Oh no, this swimming pool has no ladders? Hmm . . . what might that cause?
Imagine a Sims movie in which a seemingly normal family is subjected to whims and impulses beyond its apparent design and control, at first harmless but of escalating intensity, as one intrepid character struggles to solve the mystery (wait, what’s this diamond doing over my head?). That is, imagine The Sims as an episode of Black Mirror, or, essentially, as a horror film, with the “player” as the villain. Would the Rosebud roll in? Who knows. But at this point, Hollywood might be desperate enough to give it a try.