Ironwood Studios’ award-winning survival road adventure Pacific Drive is officially being adapted for TV, with James Wan’s Atomic Monster leading production. As reported by Variety, the adaptation doesn’t have a cable or streaming home yet, but Atomic Monster is well-positioned to develop the show to series.
Already, the company is working alongside Amazon and Disney+ on a variety of projects, and James Wan’s work on titles like Saw, The Conjuring, and Insidious is well-respected in the industry. Atomic Monster has also earned its flowers in the production of films like Mortal Kombat, M3GAN, The Nun, and ‘Salem’s Lot.
For now, not much is known about Atomic Monster’s plans for Pacific Drive, but given Wan’s proclivity for modern horror, he feels like a perfect fit to produce an adaptation.
For those unfamiliar, Pacific Drive is a road story about a driver travelling through a mysterious, somewhat haunted area known as the Olympic Exclusion Zone, where trees cast long shadows, and strange occurrences are the norm. It is largely driven by atmosphere and tension, but a quiet narrative plays out in the background, boosting its cool, creepy vibes.
Read: Pacific Drive and the art of building story through atmosphere
Speaking at GCAP 2024, lead narrative designer and lead writer Karrie Shao spoke openly about how Pacific Drive elevates its narrative through minimal dialogue and plot – which should be a unique challenge for its adaptation.
“Throughout my career, no game I’ve worked on has been a better lesson of ‘tell the story before a single written word’ than Pacific Drive,” Shao said. “It has been the biggest demonstration to me of how much your audience responds to a clear and present vibe before they ever touch your game.”
Any adaptation will need to take this message to heart, to really capture the vibes of Pacific Drive and what makes it so unique.
As noted by Variety, work on the Pacific Drive TV series is currently being helmed by Wan, alongside Atomic Monster’s Michael Clear and Rob Hackett, as well as Jeff Ludwig of The Menagerie Productions. It’s currently unclear how far along development is, but we’re likely to hear updates in the coming year.
