Margot Robbie’s production company LuckyChap Entertainment is developing a live-action film adaptation of Electronic Arts’ The Sims, one of the best-selling video game franchises in history. The project, first reported by The Hollywood Reporter in March 2024, pairs Robbie’s Oscar-nominated banner with Amazon MGM Studios, Vertigo Entertainment, and EA itself in a creative producing capacity. Kate Herron, who directed the first season of Marvel’s Loki on Disney+, is attached to direct and co-write the screenplay alongside Briony Redman, a British writer and comedian whose previous collaboration with Herron included a script for the most recent series of Doctor Who. As of May 2025, Herron confirmed to Variety that the project remains in its writing phase, stating: “I’m just writing away, but we’re all feeling very good about it.”
The franchise’s commercial pedigree is formidable. The Sims launched in February 2000, created by Will Wright and developed by Maxis under EA’s publishing umbrella. The original game sold more than 200 million copies across its four mainline instalments and dozens of expansion packs, making it one of the highest-selling PC game series ever produced. By 2024, EA reported that the franchise had attracted more than 500 million lifetime players worldwide. The Sims 4, which debuted in September 2014 and transitioned to a free-to-play model in October 2022, added over 15 million players in fiscal year 2024 alone, and users logged more than 1.2 billion hours in the game during that same period. The franchise spans 25 years and has been translated into multiple languages, with themed expansion packs introducing mechanics ranging from vampires and magic to high school life and show business.
LuckyChap Entertainment, founded in 2014 by Robbie, Tom Ackerley, and Josey McNamara, has rapidly become one of Hollywood’s most commercially successful production outfits. The company’s 2023 release Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig and distributed by Warner Bros., grossed $1.448 billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of that year and the biggest in Warner Bros.’ 100-year history. Barbie received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won the inaugural Golden Globe for Outstanding Cinematic and Box Office Achievement. LuckyChap also produced Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman (2020), which earned five Oscar nominations and won Best Original Screenplay, as well as Saltburn (2023) and Birds of Prey (2020), which crossed $200 million globally. The company’s upcoming slate includes Wuthering Heights, directed by Fennell, and a Monopoly adaptation also in development with Amazon MGM.
Producer Roy Lee, whose Vertigo Entertainment credits include The Lego Movie and It, compared the tone of the forthcoming Sims film to two of LuckyChap’s reference points during a September 2025 interview with The Direct. “Somewhere in between both The Lego Movie and Barbie is where The Sims movie will be,” Lee said, adding: “It’s one of these things where I can’t talk about it much, because it’s going to be unique.” EA’s vice president and general manager of The Sims franchise, Kate Gorman, told Variety in September 2024 that the production aims to deliver “a truly authentic Sims experience brought to a theatrical release,” explicitly citing Barbie‘s cultural impact as the benchmark. “We wanted the right partners and to make an impact the size of something like a Barbie movie is exactly what we want,” Gorman stated. She confirmed the film would feature franchise hallmarks including Freezer Bunnies, characters speaking Simlish, and “a pool without a ladder.”
The adaptation represents a revival of an earlier attempt to bring The Sims to cinema. In May 2007, 20th Century Fox acquired the film rights, with Brian Lynch – later known for writing Minions and Puss in Boots – attached to pen the screenplay and John Davis producing. Lynch’s script reportedly centred on a young protagonist who discovers that his actions in The Sims game manifest in the real world. However, the project remained in development for over a decade before being formally cancelled in 2019, when Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox led to the purge of nearly the entire Fox development slate. Brian Lynch told The Guardian in May 2024 that the principal obstacle was the prohibitively high production costs, given that the film’s world-building required extensive special effects alongside an expensive ensemble cast.
No cast has been announced for the LuckyChap-produced version. Herron’s attachment marks her second major video game adaptation; she directed an episode of HBO’s The Last of Us season two, earning an Emmy nomination for the work. LuckyChap principals Robbie, Ackerley, and McNamara will produce alongside Roy Lee and Miri Yoon of Vertigo Entertainment. EA Entertainment president Laura Miele described the partnership as “a testament to the enduring power of this beloved franchise, which has captivated more than 500 million players for a quarter of a century.”
The Sims film does not yet have a confirmed release date or distribution plan. Industry estimates suggest the writing phase will conclude in 2025, with principal photography following in 2026 at the earliest, placing a potential theatrical release in 2027. The project arrives amid a surge in video game adaptations, with Warner Bros.’ A Minecraft Movie becoming one of the highest-grossing films of 2025. For LuckyChap, the adaptation continues a deliberate strategy of transforming narrative-agnostic intellectual properties – Barbie the toy had no storyline, just as The Sims offers players an open-ended sandbox – into commercially dominant theatrical events. Whether the studio can replicate that alchemy with a game that has no fixed plot, no predetermined characters, and no canonical ending remains the central question. What is certain is that a 25-year-old franchise with half a billion players behind it carries a built-in audience that most studios would spend decades attempting to manufacture.
