One of Sony PlayStation’s most recognisable franchises may soon be smashing and exploding its way onto your TV. Twisted Metal, the chaotic sci-fi demolition derby game, is being adapted for the small screen from the writers of the Deadpool films, and one of the writers of Cobra Kai.
The idea for a Twisted Metal show began percolating back in 2019, and now writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Deadpool, Zombieland) have teamed up with Michael Jonathan Smith (Cobra Kai) to crack the case. Reese and Wernick will executive produce along with Smith, who’ll write and showrun.
According to Variety, which broke the news, the story follows “a motor-mouthed outsider who is offered a chance at a better life, but only if he can successfully deliver a mysterious package across a post-apocalyptic wasteland. With the help of a trigger-happy car thief, he’ll face savage marauders driving vehicles of destruction and other dangers of the open road, including a deranged clown…who drives an all too familiar ice cream truck, whom fans of the game will know as Sweet Tooth.” Will Arnett’s Electric Avenue production company is also on board.
Twisted Metal debuted in 1995 along with the release of the first PlayStation and has been a staple of the platform ever since. While each game has its own variation on the story, the main gameplay is usually just a no-holds-barred demolition derby between all sorts of themed vehicles and driven by people with unique, sinister, personalities. But instead of just smashing into each other, the vehicles have guns and bombs and all manner of destructive capabilities. The last vehicle standing wins.
“We love Twisted Metal in all its twisted insanity,” Glenn Adilman, executive vice president of comedy development for Sony Pictures Television, told Variety. “Michael Jonathan Smith hit it out of the park with an action-packed, brilliantly funny adaptation and we are grateful for the support of Rhett, Paul, Will and our friends at PlayStation.”
There’s no word on a timeline for the show or any hints at casting (Variety points out that while Arnett might voice Sweet Tooth, no deal exists yet) but with streaming eating up content like Truckasaurus, you’d imagine this will land somewhere sooner rather than later.
[referenced id=”1028046″ url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2017/03/a-brief-history-of-filmmakers-explaining-why-video-game-movies-suck/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/03/ms8dhsjgrqc4uqzbx2wb-300×169.jpg” title=”A Brief History Of Filmmakers Explaining Why Video Game Movies Suck” excerpt=”Hollywood keeps making video games movies and they keep being terrible. So, the people in Hollywood keep on having to talk about whether any video game film adaptation will ever be good.”]