Elder Scrolls Could Get A Film Franchise Some Day, If Peter Jackson Were Involved

We’re seeing a lot of publishers at the moment taking their IP to the silver screen; how far into the conversation have you been in turning your franchises into movies?

Pete Hines: We get asked to all the time, but the short version is; we make games. That’s what we are known for. And this conversation usually falls into the camp of; are we going to let some other person do their own interpretation of what Fallout is, or Elder Scrolls is, or Dishonored is? Or are we going to hold onto it and let the developers be the only ones that are able to say, “this is what Fallout is, or Elder Scrolls, or Wolfenstein, or whatever?” So we want our developers to decide what our franchises are about and not a movie director, or producer or studio.

Even when they say, “oh no, you will have total control,” well, I don’t know anybody who actually has total control over the film adaptation of their video game. If you did, why would you not just make it yourself? Of course the film studio and the scriptwriter and the director are going to have a ton of say. They will have their own vision. So we get asked all the time, but we see it as a distraction. We’re a video games company; let’s do what we know.

Peter Jackson is one of the most successful directors in recent memory. So it comes to no surprise that such a person would be the only way to convince Howard to go through with it. Although this movie franchise idea is a good one, the story would have to be on point and the director would have to research and know everything about Elder Scrolls before moving forward with this project.