Sam Raimi is set to bring a popular survival video game to the big screen. The Spider-Man director will be joined by another notable filmmaker for the project.
20th Century Studios has acquired the theatrical film rights to Roblox’s massively popular video game 99 Nights in the Forest. Josh Cooley, best known for directing Toy Story 4 and Transformers One, is set to write the live-action adaptation of the game. Sam Raimi has also joined the project as a producer along with producing partner Rob Tapert (via The Hollywood Reporter).
Cooley had previously co-written Pixar’s Inside Out, for which he earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay in 2016. Both Inside Out and his directorial debut Toy Story 4 won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
Most recently, Cooley directed the 2024 animated sci-fi movie Transformers One, starring Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, and Jon Hamm.
Meanwhile, Raimi has previously directed the iconic Evil Dead horror trilogy and the Spider-Man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire. His credits also include Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Darkman, Send Help, Oz the Great and Powerful, and many more.
How a Roblox horror hit landed a major studio movie deal
Details about Josh Cooley’s take on Roblox’s 99 Nights in the Forest remain under wraps. However, sources say that 20th Century Studios heard pitches from a slew of writers and ultimately settled on Cooley’s idea.
99 Nights in the Forest is a survival game released in 2025 where players have to spend 99 nights in a haunted forest. They have to build camps and survive the vicious landscape while trying to rescue four lost children. Players must also fend off a violent deer and other hostile creatures.
Despite being a relatively new game, 99 Nights quickly became Roblox’s seventh-most-played game of all time. It currently has over 29 billion visits with a player rating of 90.6 percent.