The Sims movie planned

The integration between games and movies has grown steadily over the last few years, and now one of the biggest gaming franchises is getting involved. 20th Century Fox will be making a film version of The Sims, reports Variety. The screenplay will be written by Brian Lynch, but it is not yet known who the director or other "talent" involved will be.

The Sims movie will be a "live-action version," reports the newspaper, presumably meaning that it will feature real-life actors and actresses as opposed to animations. It is not known how the producers intend to adapt the life simulation series for movie goers. The feature film project has been set up with producer John Davis, with Steve Asbell overseeing the project for Fox and EA's Rod Humble managing the property for Electronic Arts.

Brian Lynch wrote and directed the movie Big Helium Dog, a 20th Century Fox mockumentary comedy released in 1999. John Davis' production credits include Eragon, When a Stranger Calls, and Norbit.

EA's Sims Studio head Rod Humble commented, "The Sims has done an interactive version of an old story, which is what it's like to have infinite power and how do you deal with it. Given that that's an old story, you can imagine how easily that would translate to traditional storytelling."

The first Sims game, which was created by Will Wright, was released on the PC in 2000, and PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube versions followed in 2003. It spawned a series of expansion packs for the original game, a sequel, The Sims 2, and a series of expansion packs for the sequel, too. The Sims 3 is currently in development, along with a Wii and Nintendo DS game called MySims. In total, the games in the series have sold more than 85 million copies worldwide.