IGN has learned that Sony Pictures is teaming with former Marvel Studios honcho Avi Arad to bring Sony Online Entertainment´s 3-D massively multiplayer online role-playing fantasy game EverQuest to the big screen.
Reliable sources have informed us that the studio views the project as a tentpole release for either 2009 or 2010. We have been told that Michael Gordon (300) has been tapped to pen the screenplay. Rumblings of an EverQuest movie first surfaced in 2000.
While plot details are being kept under wraps, the fantasy epic will be based on an original pitch by Gordon and will feature some seminal characters from the game.
IGN contacted Sony Pictures for comment. The studio did not deny our report but added that no release date had been set yet for the film.
EverQuest takes place in the fantastical world of Norrath -- a realm inhabited by 14 different races including humans, ogres, elves and animal-human hybrids -- and its moon Luclin. Other planes of reality also exist within the game´s universe. Players create avatars that can slay monsters, embark on quests or acquire treasure.
EverQuest marks Arad´s most ambitious project since parting ways last year with Marvel Studios, where he produced such hits as Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and Blade. His most recent non-Marvel film production was Bratz.
