Nexon wants to expand its game franchises to film and TV. | Image: Nexon
Nexon, which develops the popular MMORPG MapleStory, wants to bring its gaming franchises to film and TV, and it’s investing nearly half a billion dollars — and the potential for more — to do so. The company announced Wednesday that it’s making a minority investment of $400 million in AGBO, a company founded by Avengers co-directors Anthony and Joe Russo and producer Mike Larocca, and says it will invest up to an additional $100 million in the first half of this year “if requested by AGBO.”
According to a press release, “the agreement is intended to accelerate the global expansion of Nexon’s existing and new franchise intellectual property (IP) in film and television and to further support AGBO’s development, production, and ownership of tent pole-led entertainment universes appealing to worldwide audiences, including via games and Virtual World experiences.” It’s unclear at the moment what any of that will look like in reality or which franchises might be first to get some sort of adaptation.
Nexon signaled it was serious about bringing its games to other mediums in July when it launched a film and television division headed up by Nick van Dyk, who led Activision Blizzard’s film and TV arm from 2014 to 2019 and worked at Disney for 10 years. van Dyk and a Nexon SVP will join AGBO’s board of directors as part of the deal, and Nexon’s investment means it will own at least 38 percent of AGBO.
In recent years, many game franchises have made the jump to movies and TV shows; Netflix has seen big success with its The Witcher series and the League of Legends-based show Arcane, and this year, we have Sony’s Uncharted movie and the Chris Pratt-led Mario movie to look forward to. With Nexon’s huge investment in AGBO, perhaps we’ll see an adaptation of MapleStory in the future, too.