20th Century Studios is turning the legendary Choose Your Own Adventure books into a movie, tapping Radio Silence duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett to direct and produce what’s sure to be an interesting take on the long-running interactive book series.
As reported by Deadline, the Radio Silence duo, best known for their works on the Ready or Not and Scream film franchises, will work from a script by Tom Bissell (The Disaster Artist), although no further plot details on the film adaptation have been announced.
As one of the most popular children’s book series during the 1980s and 1990s, Choose Your Own Adventure was published by Bantam Books and was a series of gamebooks with the unique premise of being written in second person. Similar to other interactive media like RPG (role-playing games) video games, the reader takes on the protagonist’s role and makes choices as they read to determine the plot.
Each story is formatted in such a way that it provides numerous crossroads for a reader to take. Certain books, for example, offer the reader a choice of different roles, such as being a traveller, a hiker or a climber, with options to turn to different pages depending on the reader’s decisions, leading to different paths and endings. This way, the books provide a unique sense of unpredictability and encourage repeat readings to experience it in its entirety, with some books even featuring unexpected twists such as endless page loops or trick endings.
Based on the concept created by author Edward Packard, the Choose Your Own Adventure series has seen 184 books beginning with 1979’s The Cave of Time, and has seen 30 different authors and adventures spanning locales from fantasy worlds to outer space. The franchise has since garnered a long-lasting cultural impact, with Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch being one of the most notable modern projects that implements its basic framework.
With Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett now on board to adapt Choose Your Own Adventure into a movie, it will surely be interesting to see how the duo can transform such a unique concept into a linear format without losing what makes it so special to begin with. Still, with their pedigree for making cult hits and adaptations of famous IPs, the legendary book franchise certainly looks to be in good hands.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
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