Huggy Wuggy has been called up by Hollywood.
Beating out several competitive offers, Legendary has closed an aggressive deal with Mob Entertainment to develop and produce a live-action feature adaptation of Poppy Playtime, a horror video game featuring the toy-turned-monster.
Legendary will develop and produce along with Mob Entertainment and Angry Films’ Don Murphy and Susan Montford, who recently finished filming horror movie Faces of Death for the company.
Featuring shades of Willy Wonka, Toy Story and Gremlins, the first person video game sees the player acting as a former employee of a faded toy brand who, thanks to a cryptic letter, is drawn back to an abandoned facility only to quickly discover it has become home to a host of toys, including Huggy Wuggy, Mommy Long Legs, and CatNap, that have taken on a life of their own. Players have to decipher clues, solve puzzles and use gadgets to unravel the mystery and get out alive.
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Mob, founded by brothers Zach and Seth Belanger in 2015, produced and released the first chapter of the game on indie game platform Steam in 2021. It became a surprise hit, amassing over 12 million players across PC and mobile, and by the time the third chapter was made, it was being played on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. The game also became an international merchandising phenomenon, with Huggy Wuggy plushies and other playthings spreading the world over.
Poppy is the third project teaming Legendary with Murphy, one of the producers of the long-running Transformers franchise, and Monford. On top of the new version of the VHS cult horror movie Faces of Death, Angry Film and Legendary are developing a multi-medium take on classic sci-fi title Buck Rogers. Angry Films is also developing an adaptation of 1980s comic Alien Legion at Warners.
For Legendary, Poppy puts it into the video game adaptation space, a hot scene that runs the gamut from family film franchises such as Sonic the Hedgehog to elevated zombie fare such as HBO’s The Last of Us. It also gives the company a potential franchise that could prove profitable if made smartly.
