Skydance, ‘Jurassic World’ Scribe Derek Connolly Tackling Sega’s ‘Eternal Champions’ (Exclusive)

Derek Connolly, the franchise scribe whose work includes the Jurassic World movies, has been tapped to write a live-action adaptation of Sega video game Eternal Champions for Skydance.

David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger will produce for Skydance, while Toru Nakahara, who has overseen the adaptation of Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, will produce for the video game producer.

Originally released in 1993, Eternal Champions was a fighting game that Sega developed and published for the Sega Genesis console. The concept, bear with us, was thus: In order to change the dire fate of Earth, a being known as the Eternal Champion marshals the souls of key humans from across history, people who were destined for greatness but died before fulfilling their promise. The individuals are thrown into a contest of champions, with the winner regaining their life and becoming the hero Earth needs in order to restore balance, while the others return to moments before their death.

The game was praised for its characters, which were a multitude, ranging from Blade, a Syrian bounty hunter from 2030 AD, and Larcen, a cat burglar in the 1920, to Slash, a hunter from 50,000 BC, and Jetta, a Russian noblewoman masquerading as an acrobat at the turn of the 20^th century.

Rob Ree, credited with bringing Skydance and Sega together on the project, is executive producing. Aimee Rivera will oversee the project for Skydance.

Connolly broke through when he co-wrote Safety Not Guaranteed with Colin Trevorrow, earning an Independent Spirit Award for best first screenplay in 2013 and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance 2012.

Since then, he has gained a reputation as a go-to scribe for franchises, be they dino-centric or lightsaber-wielding. He worked with Trevorrow on Jurassic World, the 2015 movie that rebooted the dino-franchise and made $1.67 worldwide, and 2018 entry Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Along the way, he earned credits on Legendary’s Monsterverse entry Kong: Skull Island, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and 2019’s Detective Pikachu.

More recently, he worked on Sony and Nintendo’s adaptation of classic video game The Legend of Zelda, which has Wes Ball on board to direct, and is in the middle of working on Paramount’s untitled Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover movie project that is to star Chris Hemsworth.

He is repped by Verve and Ginsburg Daniels.