Fans of fantasy trading card games that were massively popular in the '90s, rejoice: Magic: The Gathering may be coming to a theater near you. 20th Century Fox has acquired the rights to adapt the wonderful wizards-and-weapons-and-spells card game as a "massive franchise on the scale of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings," according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The adaptation of the game, which became a gaming phenomenon after it was released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast (a company that was bought by Hasbro in 1999), is being overseen by writer-producer Simon Kinberg, who has also had a hand in the X-Men franchise and the upcoming Fantastic Four flick.
Kinberg will reportedly be working with Hasbro on the adaptation. No details yet on how exactly the game will be adapted or what the stories will be, as The Verge noted, "expansion sets have placed emphasis on a number of powerful 'planeswalkers' and the canon is rich with lore, [but] there isn't a consistent overarching narrative."
However, with the Harry Potter series over and Peter Jackson's final Hobbit film coming out next year, presumably Fox is looking to fill the wizard/fantasy void left by those two mega-successful franchises. Or maybe it could be a period piece about one smart kid in 1997 who played his cards just right – you know, more The Wizard than just wizards. But maybe that's just our fantasy.
