Will Ferrell is attached to star in the untitled comedy set in the world of eSports for Legendary.
Gary Sanchez and Mosaic will produce based on a script by Michael Kvamme and Jordan Dunn. Patrick Connelly and John Beach of Gravity Squared are co-producing.
Ferrell will star as a member of a professional eSports team. In the film he is an anomaly in a sport where players usually retire in their 20s due to slowing hand-eye coordination. Evil Geniuses and Fnatic, two of the premiere real-life eSports teams in the world, are in discussions to have a presence in the film.
The film will be in the vein of Ferrell’s NASCAR comedy “Talladega Nights.” Universal will distribute.
Today’s top eSports players are as young as 15, and can earn millions of dollars through prize money, endorsements and streaming. The 2016 prize pool for the game DOTA’s championship was over $20 million, and last year’s League of Legends finals had more viewers than the World Series or NBA Finals.
Ferrell is currently in production on the Sony comedy “Holmes and Watson” opposite John C. Reilly.
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He is repped by UTA and Mosaic. Kvamme and Dunn previously penned “SpongeBob SquarePants 3” for Paramount and recently sold the spec “Operation: Prince of Freedom” to Paramount. They are repped by Mosaic and Verve.
