Paramount has optioned the rights to immersive role-playing game Alice Is Missing, with Becca Gleason, a writer and consulting producer on Amazon’s just-released YA series The Summer I Turned Pretty, attached to direct and co-write the adaptation.
Joining Gleason to co-write is Spenser Starke, the designer of the game published by Hunters Entertainment, the tabletop game studio behind popular RPGs such as The Altered Carbon RPG, Kids on Bikes, Icarus and Outbreak: Undead.
Temple Hill, the banner behind major YA movies ranging from the recent Emergency and The Fault in Our Stars to franchise plays such as The Maze Runner and Twilight, will produce along with Gleason.
Alice is an immersive and so-called silent RPG played entirely via text message. The premise involves the disappearance of a teen named Alice Briarwood, a high school junior in the small town of Silent Falls. The players take on various characters in Alice’s life such as her brother, her secret relationship and the boy with the crush, among others, as they attempt to uncover why she has gone missing.
The game was introduced only two years ago after a successful Kickstarter campaign, but quickly took off. It garnered not only raves and honors, such as Ennie Awards for best game and product of the year, but a young and plugged-in fan base that continually generates its own stories and fan art around the game.
Ivan Van Norman and Christopher De La Rosa will co-produce the film. John Fischer is overseeing for Temple Hill, while Clarence Hammond shepherds for Paramount.
Gleason, who got her start on the production staff of cult comedy Community, made her directorial debut with Summer ’03, a romantic drama that starred Joey King, and which she also wrote. She recently directed the Freeform TV pilot What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding, which was just picked up to series.
Starke is a creator of many award-winning tabletop games, such as Kids On Brooms and Icarus. He is also adapting other game properties outside of his own work for TV and film. He is currently the game designer for Darrington Press, the tabletop game division at Critical Role.
Gleason is repped by ICM Partners, Navigation Media Group and Felker Toczek. Starke is repped by Sugar23 and Felker Toczek. Sugar23 was instrumental in assisting Hunters in the Paramount deal.