The Oregon Trail, one of the longest-running video game series of all time, is getting the big-screen Hollywood treat (thanks, Eurogamer).
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film is in production at Apple and will be directed by Will Speck and produced by Josh Gordon. Max Reisman is penning the screenplay alongside siblings Kenny and Keith Lucas (Judas and the Black Messiah).
It's being reported that the movie will feature musical sections "in the vein of Barbie" and that the songs will be penned by Emmy winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Only Murders in the Building). Speck, Gordon, Pasek, and Paul all worked together recently on the movie Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. No actors have been confirmed as yet.
The Oregon Trail started life as an educational text-based adventure in 1971, when Don Rawitsch, Paul Dillenberger and Bill Heinemann created it as a tool to assist with a student-teaching project. It was never released commercially, but in 1974, the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium hired Rawitsch to create OREGON, a version of the game which was published on the MECC's timeshare system.
In 1985, R. Philip Bouchard, John Krenz and Charolyn Kapplinger updated the concept for the Apple II. This version was later ported to PC and Apple Mac. Since then, the series has developed via a number of sequels and expansions. The most recent version is produced by Gameloft and recently hit the PS5 and Switch.