Derek Connolly, a franchise screenwriter who has worked on films such as the “Jurassic World” series, has been hired as the screenwriter for Skydance's live-action adaptation of Sega's video game “Eternal Champions.”
David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger are producing for Skydance, while Toru Nakahara, who oversaw the film adaptation of Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series, will serve as producer for the video game studio.
First released in 1993, Eternal Champions is a fighting game developed by Sega and published for the Sega Genesis console. You get the concept: in order to change the dire fate of the Earth, beings known as Eternal Champions bring together the souls of important figures from history – people who were destined for greatness but died before they could fulfill their mission. Individuals are thrown into a Champions' Competition, and the winner will return to life and become the hero needed to restore balance to the Earth, while others are sent back to the moment before their death.
The game was highly praised for its diverse cast of characters, including Blade, a Syrian bounty hunter in 2030, Larsen, a 1920s bandit, Slash, a hunter from 50,000 BC, and Jetta, a Russian aristocrat disguised as an acrobat in the early 20th century.
Rob Lee, who brought Skydance and Sega together on the project, will serve as executive producer, with Amy Rivera overseeing the project on Skydance's behalf.
Connolly's breakthrough came with Safety Not Guaranteed, which he co-wrote with Colin Trevorrow, winning the Independent Spirit Award for Best New Screenplay in 2013 and the Waldo Salt Screenplay Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012.
Since then, he's earned a reputation as the go-to screenwriter for franchises, whether they're dinosaur-centric or lightsaber-involved. He worked with Trevorrow on the 2015 film Jurassic World, which rebooted the dinosaur franchise and grossed $1.67 worldwide, and 2018's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Along the way, he's earned credits on Legendary's MonsterVerse films Kong: Skull Island, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and 2019's Detective Pikachu.
Most recently, he was involved in Wes Ball's film adaptation of the classic video game The Legend of Zelda for Sony and Nintendo, and is currently working on Paramount's untitled Transformers/GI Joe crossover film project starring Chris Hemsworth.
He is repped by Verve and Ginsburg Daniels.
