In 2024, during Jacksepticeye‘s annual Thankmas fundraising stream, a viewer asked him what he was working on outside of his YouTube videos.
He told them he was working on something he couldn’t talk about yet. Something he wasn’t sure would even be greenlit. But if it went forward, he said, it would be the biggest accomplishment of his career.
Well, it went forward.
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And it is a Bloodborne movie.
FromSoftware‘s iconic 2015 RPG is frequently cited as one of the best video games of all time. It’s set in the fog-drenched fantasy city of Yharnam and follows a Hunter seeking the cure to a mysterious illness warping people into beasts. Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and done up in FromSoft’s signature grotesque, Gothic style, Bloodborne is the favorite title of many a gamer–including Jacksepticeye.
“I can’t believe I get to say the words that are gonna come out of my mouth,” he told viewers in an April 14 upload. “I get to produce an R-rated Bloodborne animated feature film.”
His personal announcement was preceded by an April 13 CinemaCon reveal from Sony Pictures, which is financing and distributing the film. Jack (aka Seán McLoughlin) will produce alongside PlayStation Productions and Lyrical Animation.
While he’s not the film’s writer or director (those haven’t yet been announced), McLoughlin is a Bloodborne lore encyclopedia, and promised he’ll do everything in his power as a producer to make sure Bloodborne fans don’t suffer the same fate as Silent Hill enthusiasts.
“This is literally the dream project that I’ve always wanted to be able to work on, and I never thought that it would actually happen,” he said. “I live and breathe FromSoftware games, but Bloodborne specifically is my top-tier highest echelon of game. […] Bloodborne is like the thing I wake up and play video games for. It is the top of the top.”
Tearing up, he added, “I feel like this is what I was put on this Earth to do. This is my North Star. This is what everything I’ve been doing has led towards, to try and get to this place.”
Onstage at CinemaCon, Sony Pictures President Sanford Panitch said the adaptation will be “very true” to Bloodborne‘s origins–which is why it’s already rated R.
Sony is also producing a number of other gaming-related films, including Helldivers and a Legend of Zelda film with Benjamin Evan Ainsworth and Bo Bragason starring as Link and Zelda, respectively.
A24, meanwhile, is producing a live-action version of FromSoft’s 2022 masterpiece Elden Ring.
As Markiplier‘s adaptation of Iron Lung proved, there’s a lot to be gained when creators who are also truly passionate fans get to helm game-to-screen adaptations. McLoughlin has spent years hyping FromSoft games on YouTube. He knows them, he loves them, and he shares them with his audience. He knows what fans want to see on the big screen, because he knows what he wants to see. Not getting him involved would’ve been a major loss for the project–but thankfully, we’re in a different dream.
