Space Channel 5 and Comix Zone to get movie adaptations as Sega partners with Picturestart

Sega has announced that Space Channel 5 and Comix Zone are getting movie adaptations which are being developed in cooperation with Picturestart. No release windows have been given at this time.

Picturestart is a media company that has made a wide variety of movie, TV, and audio content since their founding in 2019. Projects they’ve made or financed include Unpregnant, Am I OK?, Cha Cha Real Smooth, and more. As for movie adaptations of video games, the company currently has a movie in production based on the Borderlands series.

Space Channel 5 is a musical action game starring Ulala, a rookie reporter at a broadcasting station in the future. A mysterious alien race called the Morolians is forcing people to dance and it’s up to Ulala to save them through dance battles. The game stands out for its gameplay where players match their opponent’s dance moves to defeat them, its retrofuture aesthetic, and characters who are overflowing with humor. Space Channel 5 initially launched for the Dreamcast in 1999 with ports and sequels following.

The script for the Space Channel 5 movie is being penned by Barry Battles and Nir Paniry. Battles both wrote and directed the crime comedy The Baytown Outlaws which starred Billy Bob Thornton and Eva Longoria, and Paniry wrote and directed Extracted, a sci-fi film that was nominated for the Emerging Visions award at South by Southwest.

Comix Zone is a beat ‘em up action game that was released for the Sega Genesis and Mega Drive in 1995. The game’s protagonist is comic book artist Sketch Turner who becomes trapped in the world of his comic and must fight mutants to escape. The game’s unique stages see players progressing through panels of a comic book.

Comix Zone is being written by Mae Catt who has worked on projects such as the Emmy-winning HBO Max series Young Justice and the How to Train Your Dragon spinoff series Dragons: The Nine Realms.

The projects will be overseen by Picturestart founder and CEO Erik Feig and Royce Reeves-Darby as they produce alongside Samie Kim Falvey, also of Picturestart.

On the Sega side, Vice President and Co-COO Shuji Utsumi will be overseeing both projects. Toru Nakahara, producer of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie franchise and executive producer of the Sonic Prime TV series, will be producing both movies. Additionally, Sega video game director Takumi Yoshinaga will be a part of the Space channel 5 team while Kagasei Shimomura, a video game producer at Sega, will be a part of the Comix Zone team.

As for movie adaptations of Sega properties, the recent hit Sonic the Hedgehog and its sequel likely come to mind. These films combine live action and CG for characters like Sonic, so it will be interesting to see what they have in mind for the Space Channel 5 Comix Zone movies.

Written by. Nick Mosier based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-08-20 14:32 JST)