Lionsgate further embraces games — working on ‘Expendables’ mobile adaptation

Digital Sylvester Stallone and friends are coming to touchscreen devices around the world.

Hollywood studio Lionsgate has announced today that it is partnering with Millennium Films producer Avi Lerner and game developer Fifth Journey to produce a mobile app adaptation of The Expendables. The game will debut in late 2016, and will bring to life the on-screen action of an action-hero franchise that has grossed nearly $800 million at the global box office across its three silver-screen releases.

This comes after Lionsgate made efforts to invest in virtual reality as well as advertising on the gaming video platform Twitch.

In a statement, Lionsgate president of interactive ventures and games Peter Levin said that his team is excited “to expand the universe of The Expendables.”

Lionsgate says the action series is ideal for a multimedia approach that includes films and games. It already has a lot of fans, as evidenced by its revenues in movie theaters, but a game could help it reach even more people.

In a statement, Lerner said that Fifth Journey’s “development and publishing savvy” will guide The Expendables to global gaming success. Fifth Journey is a newer studio that Gameloft veteran Eric Tan founded last year specifically to build games for Hollywood brands. While The Expendables is its first project, the studio will deliver something in partnership with Universal as well.

Tan previously did similar work at Gameloft on projects related to Iron Man 3, Ice Age, and Despicable Me. He obviously spotted a trend of Hollywood studios looking to partner with mobile-gaming companies to help market and generate revenue from their properties, and he is now capitalizing on that.

Echoing the statements of Lerner and Levin, Tan said that The Expendables has “all the ingredients” to make the leap from film to game. And we’ll see if that’s the case sometime next year.