Facepunch is ‘talking to people’ about a Rust movie: ‘We definitely had interest’

I’m long past the point of being incredulous about what games get movie spin-offs. When Hasbro’s classic Battleship boardgame got a sci-fi adaptation with Rihanna and Liam Neeson back in 2012, it became clear that nothing was off the table. So I’m not remotely surprised that Rust developer Facepunch has been “talking to people” about adapting its long-running survival sandbox. “There’s nothing concrete,” Alistair McFarlane, Facepunch’s director and COO, tells us. But the studio has been “talking to people”, including “big-name companies” and it’s “definitely had an interest”. But don’t expect any news on that front soon, he adds, because the entertainment industry “is just very slow”. The process involves a lot of pitches and a lot of back and forth. “When they approach us, they’ll take it, they’ll pitch it, they’ll want writers to come and pitch it, and they’ll want to nominate themselves,” says McFarlane. “They’ll go away and create a script, and then they have to pitch it to another layer, and then that gets another layer, then they’ll need to pitch it to the studios. So it’s a whole pyramid to try and get anything off the ground.”

And Facepunch actually has to trust whoever ends up making it. “Between every step of that, there’s about 50 people trying to scam you,” says Facepunch founder Garry Newman. “It has to be someone that you really trust and can count on.” McFarlane notes that the studio’s been approached by people wanting to pay for the rights, but Facepunch is being cautious. “What we’ve seen is a lot of people are trying to retain these rights, so no one else gets it, because they might see it as a threat.”The fact that there isn’t really a story or a protagonist to prop up the non-existent story isn’t really a barrier. It’s never stopped movie studios before. So if they were to create a character to embody the survival sandbox—let’s call them John Rust because why not?—who would Facepunch want to play them?Anyone, it turns out. “I don’t even think you need a big-name star,” says McFarlane. “I think anyone could probably fill in.”Possibly controversial, but I don’t think they should even be human. A dog as the hero of Rust: The Movie? Why not? And I’m not just saying that because I’d quite like my own pooch to start paying me some rent. Anyway, don’t expect this to appear in movie theatres any time soon, but maybe one day.

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