Funcom announced yesterday that Johnny Depp’s Infinitum Nihil and G4C Innovation’s Gudrun Giddings have partnered to produce The Secret World, a TV series based on Funcom’s massively multiplayer online game The Secret World and its reincarnation, the shared-world online RPG Secret World Legends.
“The Secret World universe is full of stories just waiting to be told,” said Funcom CEO Rui Casais. “From secret societies to myths and legends that are all coming true, The Secret World captures some of humanity’s greatest mysteries and asks “what if?”. As the developers of The Secret World and Secret World Legends, we think it is a fantastic premise for a television show and one we hope will capture the collective imagination of the audience.”
The TV series is based on the universe of the Secret World IP and centres on a team of undercover agents and the shadowy war between secret societies, the Illuminati, Dragon and the Templar. Central to the plot is also the battle against the supernatural in an adventure that spans across our world, multiple dimensions, and incorporates the realms of ancient myths and legends as well as today’s conspiracy theories and headline news.
The pilot was written by James V. Hart (Hook, Dracula, Contact) and Jake Hart. Johnny Depp, Christi Dembrowski, Sam Sarkar and Gudrun Giddings will produce together with showrunner Pam Veasey. (CSI-NY) and CAA (Creative Artists Agency) doing the packaging.
“It is one of the most character-driven and well-developed games I know of,” mentioned Giddings, who optioned the media rights back in 2012. “Hence it naturally lends itself to fantastical storylines with intriguing characters, a thrilling and binge-worthy international TV show.”
Sarkar, who developed the project from its inception with Giddings shared, “From the moment Gudrun first brought this to me, I loved this property. I live for conspiracy theory. I don’t believe it, but I love it. This is the secret story of the people who rule the people who rule the world.”
Set within a dark and mature story universe, Secret World Legends plunges players into a sweeping adventure into the supernatural underbelly of myths and legends that exists in the shadows of our own realm.