Hollywood has finally cracked the code on making movies based on video games, at least from a box-office perspective. The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the Sonic the Hedgehog trilogy, and A Minecraft Movie have grossed billions combined since 2020. Whether theyre good movies is up for debate. Critically, TV seems to be where game adaptations are shining; Fallout and The Last of Us are legit prestige television, likely in part due to the close creative involvement of the people who make those games and producers who adore the source material.
Two producers fighting to improve the quality of video game adaptations are Dmitri M. Johnson and Mike Goldberg, otherwise known as Story Kitchen. Theyve been working for years to make game adaptations better, or at a bare minimum, more authentic to creators visions and to the people who play those games. Story Kitchens work includes the Sonic the Hedgehog film franchise, the first film of which was famously delayed in response to fan criticism but wound up winning fans over.
In recent years, Story Kitchens Goldberg and Johnson have gone into overdrive, locking down movie and TV deals for adaptations based on Tomb Raider, It Takes Two, Streets of Rage, and Just Cause. But the production company is just getting started, Goldberg and Johnson tell Polygon. In addition to getting indies into the mix, with upcoming adaptations of games like Sifu and Dredge, Story Kitchen is developing at least 10 projects for Sega in the wake of Sonics success.
Polygon recently spoke to Goldberg and Johnson about their production company and what its working on — which includes a few surprises still to be announced. Read on for our full conversation, which has been edited for clarity.
Mike Goldberg: We launched the production company [for] film and TV two and a half years ago. We specialize in sourcing, partnering, and working to adapt nontraditional IP into film and TV. When we say “nontraditional IP,” we are referring to video game IP. How this all came about was primarily off the heels of dj2 Entertainment, [which] Dmitri launched with the same thesis in mind. It was early days, and video game adaptations werent really a thing. They were attacked in the press. They were attacked in the media. Fans werent responding, and Dmitri didnt believe, he thought a meaningful way was a field trip to Japan to finagle a meeting with the C-suite of Sega and to discuss with Sega their thoughts on finally unlocking [Sonic the Hedgehog] for film.
At the time it was not at the top of their bucket list, but after years of campaigning [...] now we have the Sonic franchise.
Fast-forward to launching Story Kitchen: I resigned from my agency to do it with Dmitri. Thanks to him, I was the No. 1 agent for video game IP into film and TV. I think I had 80 deals done from repping Atari, Square Enix, and Bandai Namco to the Tomb Raider deal — twice over as first we sold animated Tomb Raider in 2019 [...] and the live-action franchise built at Amazon [...] the Phoebe Waller-Bridge live-action tentpole series thats in pre-production.
[Ed. note: After our interview, reports have suggested that Waller-Bridges live-action Tomb Raider project is no longer moving forward at Amazon. We checked in with Story Kitchen, which said, “The show is not dead and still tracking forward.”]
So to that end, we have an Amazon television first-look deal and a DreamWorks Animation film first-look deal. Were external consultants, if you will. We have these shortcuts, but its great because we get additional intel and support if theres a game that makes sense to bring into them.
We love our indies, we love our AAAs, and its having the pleasure of working with everyone from Poncle with Vampire Survivors to Black Salt Games with Dredge. This conversation came out of Sifu, and that was such an extraordinary experience. We sold that game as a movie to Netflix during the double strikes of 2023. The writers and the actors were on the picket lines, and were like, OK, we cant do much, but were talking to Netflix and [told them], Hey, theres this game thats extraordinary from a very young game developer and a very young game publisher, Sloclap and Kepler. And within less than five business days, theyre like, I love it. Lets do it as a movie.
This morning [we were] catching up with our writer, Chad Stahelski, and Netflix to really ensure that Sifu remains on the fast track for this year. Kepler was so impressed with us that they called us and theyre like, All right, heres our slate until 2027. You guys did a great job. What are you excited about? And thats what led us to [Clair Obscur: Expedition 33], which we just announced we are doing a couple weeks ago. That game is awesome; we have played it. It comes out April 24, and weve already done one massive attachment that hasnt been announced, but were hoping to have another attachment in the next two weeks, and then we can announce our live-action film package around it. But its for the love of games and authentically connecting those dots.
Dmitri M. Johnson: As much as we love and are grateful for the Tomb Raiders and the Sonics, we really do kind of live in the indie space. This goes back to even before Sonic came out: I was fortunate, and I dont even honestly remember how it started, but I somehow got on the radar of the Swedish government. And every quarter, they would fly me over, and I would give talks on my thesis on taking games into film and TV. What that exposed me to, long before the rest of Hollywood, was the incredible hub of talent in the Nordics. So just getting to know those developers and those creators, the storytelling that was happening there was just mind-blowing. And Hollywood at the time was still very much driven by, How many copies did it sell? How much money did it make?
We finally got to a point of: Dont care; dont ask anymore. Heres why its a great story. Heres why its a unique world. These are things we dont currently have in film and TV. Thats why were excited. Over time we kind of trained [Hollywood], so at least on our side, we dont get that question anymore. Now its totally about the creative, just like a producer who goes after New York Times bestsellers or comic books, graphic novels, [and] spec scripts — its about the creative. I tell everyone that its almost easier to get a deal done with the billion-dollar publishers than the indies because theres so much more on the line [for indies]. Its so much more personal. Theres a certain level of trust that has to be built over years, over decades. Fast-forward to today, were just in this incredible moment of really getting to live out our childhood dreams. I think were in various stages of development on 10 separate Sega properties together — just dream projects.
Polygon: Obviously, Sonic the Hedgehog was a pretty big success story for you. What do you identify as the DNA that made that successful?
Johnson: Its all about the village you built. Sonic is such a special village because everyone involved had their own connection to the IP, grew up playing those games. It is driven by passion. Before Mike was our agent, in a weird cosmic coincidence, he repped the [Sonic the Hedgehog] writers separately. They were Sega kids, and they were passionate about the IP. So no one was going into it like, Lets go make a billion-dollar franchise. Selfishly, we wanted to see this movie made for ourselves. We wanted to see a Sonic movie made the right way. We knew not only could it change the landscape for game adaptations, but again, if its the only one that got done, we got to make a Sonic movie. And that was kind of the driver on that.
I think we approach all of these in the same way. Phoebe Waller-Bridge [making Tomb Raider], people are surprised, like, Wow, thats kind of random. No, its not. She was a superfan. Her parents had to take her PlayStation away because she played for two weeks straight. So its finding those people. ToeJam and Earl, were out to a director right now who rapped about ToeJam in one of his songs. We try to do our research to find out who might be a kind of prebuilt fan, start there, and really build out just a village of passion. Now we like to say, You dont have to be a gamer. You dont have to have played these games. We do get great work from people who havent. But it definitely does create that special something when that can happen.
In terms of approaching other Sega properties, whats that work been like for you in terms of adapting? Im a Shinobi fan, but even Im kind of wondering, What is a Shinobi movie? What is a Streets of Rage movie? Its a little harder to identify that than a Sonic the Hedgehog movie.
Johnson: The Shinobi script is one of my favorite scripts weve developed. It is going to be so fun. We do a little bit of fan service for Shinobi fans; theyre going to be hyped for it. But my mom, who didnt play Shinobi, shes also going to be hyped. Its going to be a great action film that has layers. Sam Hargrave wants to do some crazy shit that I personally want to see him pull it off. Im like, I dont know how youre going to do that, but I want to see it. I want to be there.
Goldberg: Hes our director. He came up in the John Wick camp, and then he directed Extraction and Extraction 2. And hes doing Matchbox right now. It should be, if timing aligns, his next movie.
I wanted to ask about the original Sonic the Hedgehog showing, and how there was a lot of strong pushback to that. How do you factor in that kind of feedback from that incident? How has that factored into your work, in terms of setting up projects and talking to studios and creatives to convey, Heres what you actually need to do with this project to make it authentic?
Johnson: Ill answer that in a more broad, general way, to not get us in trouble. Look, that was a period in time where I think Hollywood thought they knew better than the folks who made the game, the thing that we were excited about in the first place. I think thats how we got the original [Super Mario Bros.] movie. I think thats how we got some of those awful, awful, awful early adaptations — they would take the rights and kind of shove the talent to the side. We flipped that on its head. After Sonic, that definitely changed the pushback that we had, and the pushback we could do on behalf of our game partners.
So, one of the exercises I like to point to is how we handled Tomb Raider. The original Tomb Raider films, [the creatives] largely felt like they were not as much a part of that conversation as they wouldve liked. So the first thing we did [with Tomb Raider] was, we flew up to Crystal Dynamics several times, and spent hours just filling up whiteboards: Lara Croft is this. Shes not this. Were going to touch on this. Were not going to touch on this. And we ended up with this exercise that really created this creative sandbox, and it was really effective. If our game partners are too busy focusing on the next game, they knew that their vision, that their concerns, were documented. In the case of Crystal, they have more resources than others. So we actually have had dedicated teammates. But for the smaller indie studios, that exercise has been extremely key for protecting their voice. The other thing we do is, we get them a seat at the table. Pre-Sonic 1, there was a lot of lip service: Oh, we are going to be a partner. And then, again, they show up to the movie and its unrecognizable [to them].
We fight for our partners on the gaming side to get producing credit. And thats not just so that they can see their name on the screen, or make some producing money. Its so that, legally, theyre part of every conversation. If were talking actors, actresses; if were getting movie outlines, TV outlines; theyre seeing it in real time. So we treat them like a real partner, with a real seat at the table. And what we do is, we try to do a delicate dance making both sides clear upfront: We have to make the best film, we have to make the best TV, but were going to do it while honoring our partners and their original vision as much as possible.
Whats next? Whats closest to filming, coming to completion? Talk to me about the slate and how things are kind of jelling.
Goldberg: Im trying to think of what has already been messaged out there. In addition to having Tomb Raider in production right now, animated and live action, theres a couple that are moving so fast, but we havent officially announced yet. We have some big things planned to announce. It feels like 2025 is going to be a pretty extraordinary year. Theres a lot of fantastic momentum.
Johnson: I will tell you this: Sifu is tracking incredibly well. Were super excited about that. The same with Shinobi; its moving unbelievably fast. Theres Just Cause with Universal that weve announced. It Takes Two, which the Sonic writers are adapting for us — such a wonderful adaptation of that. We are really excited about how that ones coming together. Ruiner, the indie game that were doing with Wes Ball, who directed all the Maze Runner movies and did [Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes] and is going to do [The Legend of Zelda] — we have a draft.
Those are things that are announced. Then theres things that havent been announced, but when theyre announced, theyll be announced with speed. Theyre primarily TV-facing, but theyre huge, break-the-internet type of announcements that our nerdoms are exploding on — and we cant believe it hasnt leaked. Then theres the new things were putting together. We are so close to getting our Vampire Survivors package out and our Dredge package out. Our last 24 hours have been consumed [by] Hazelights new game, Split Fiction, that has done extraordinarily well since the game came out. We are in the middle of it with Hazelight, [and] we have a massive [meeting] in a few minutes with someone who could be one of the two characters for the movie. Its unbelievable.
One of the projects were most excited about is with Brooklyns own (by way of London) Sam Barlow. Were putting together Her Story, which is a passion project.
Goldberg: Sam is so unbelievable as a game developer. [We think] it should be a movie, as a tight, twisty concept. Its an intimate movie, and weve been building our village for that.
