Universal Powering Up Sega Video Game ‘Shinobi’ Into Movie With Sam Hargrave At The Helm

It’s not just all about Sonic the Hedgehog. Another Sega video game franchise, Shinobi, is heading to the big screen, with Sam Hargrave directing for Universal.

Ken Kobayashi (Sunny, Move On) is writing the screenplay adaptation of the arcade game, which first debuted in 1987. That edgy game followed Joe Musashi, a modern-day ninja who confronts great evil. Shinobi spawned 14 games include spinoffs and ports for a total 5 million copies sold around the globe. A new entry in the series was revealed in late 2023.

Marc Platt and Adam Siegel will produce the movie through Marc Platt Productions alongside Dmitri M. Johnson through Story Kitchen and Toru Nakahara for Sega. Mike Goldberg will executive produce alongside Timothy I. Stevenson, who is co-producing.

The pic follows Universal’s 2023 video game adaptation success with Illumination and Nintendo’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s, which minted over $1.4 billion and $290 million, respectively, at the global box office.

Universal’s SVP Production Development Ryan Jones and Director of Production Development Christine Sun will oversee the project for the studio.

Hargrave directed Netflix’s Extraction franchise through two pics. The first movie was the most-watched original film in Netflix’s history, drawing more than 99 million viewers during the first four weeks, while the sequel became the No. 1 movie on Netflix in 90 countries with its predecessor rising back to the top of the list at No. 2. They held the top two positions for two weeks in a row.

His upcoming projects include Matchbox for Mattel Films and Skydance and Kill Them All which is in development at Paramount Pictures.

Kobayashi was most recently a co-executive producer on Apple/A24’s Sunny. He has also written on Hit Monkey for Marvel/Hulu and Amazon’s Moonfall. His pilot Kuromaku was sold to Amazon MGM Studios. In film, his screenplay Move On topped the 2019 Black List and is in development at Columbia Pictures.

Hargrave is repped by WME and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson & Christopher, LLP; Kobayashi is repped by CAA, Redefine Entertainment and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole LLP; Marc Platt Productions is repped by Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris; and Story Kitchen is repped by WME and Pryor Cashman.

Toru Nakahara negotiated the deal on behalf of Sega.