The Final Fantasy XIV live-action television series first announced back in 2019 is “dead,” according to the production company that was working on it. Hivemind, which also worked on Netflix’s The Witcher, was developing the series with Sony Pictures Television, but co-founder Dinesh Shamdasani revealed on Twitter that the project is dead when asked about it, as reported by PC Gamer.
“Dead,” Shamdasani writes on Twitter in response to someone asking what happened with the series’ production. “We took around a fantastic pilot script by Ben Lustig and Jake Thornton along with a multi-season plan they built with our showrunners, but got rejected across the board. The size and scale needed to do it right proved too much for anyone to want to risk. Amazon came closest.”
Dead. We took around a fantastic pilot script by Ben Lustig & @jakethornton along with a multi-season plan they built with our show runners but got rejected across the board. The size and scale needed to do it right proved too much for anyone to want to risk. Amazon came closest.
— Dinesh Shamdasani (@dinesh_s) January 23, 2024
When asked by someone else if an animated series is the way to go for this, Shamdasani said it would actually be harder, adding that the rights to an adaptation of Final Fantasy XIV “are back in Japan unfortunately.”
PC Gamer notes that Thornton says the series’ “dead” status is the result of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We took it out just as studios began to zip up their purse strings,” he writes on Twitter.
At the time of its 2019 announcement, not much was known about the project, other than it being a collaboration between Hivemind and Sony Pictures Television. There was no word on cast, story, which parts of Eorzea the series might take place in, and other details along those lines.
While this might be disappointing news for those who were excited about the adaptation, there’s plenty to be excited about in Eorzea. The next Final Fantasy XIV expansion, Dawntrail, is coming this summer, and before that, Final Fantasy XIV will finally come to Xbox Series X/S this spring. Check out the new job and race coming with Dawntrail, and then catch up on everything you need to know about the upcoming expansion here.
[Source: PC Gamer]
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