I had the ultimate flashback to my childhood upon hearing the news that Fox is developing a big screen version of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure book series. The books, for those of you who lived under a rock in the 1980s and 1990s, are formatted in such a way that every few pages of reading forces you to decide on one of multiple directions for the story. Make the wrong choice and the book could be over in five minutes. Make a different choice and the book could last for hours. Each reading experience was unique and with hundreds of titles to choose from, there was no shortage of adventures to be had.
Choose Your Own Adventure worked as a book but I am not sure how a film would be presented. The Hollywood Reporter says that producers John Davis and John Fox (CHRONICLE, I, ROBOT, PREDATOR) are looking to make this a “four quadrant action adventure franchise” which means the film would tie in with book lines, merchandising, and more.
Could the film be based on one of the classic books in the series like “Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey?” or “Deadwood City”? My personal favorite was “The Mystery of Chimney Rock”, but making a movie based on the stories would remove the interactive nature of the books. Could these be presented like THE NEVERENDING STORY or JUMANJI where kids reading the books get sucked into the fictional world and forced to make decisions to progress the tale? That may be a cool approach.
YouTube is home to countless movies made interactive like this which works with hyperlinks and other online tools. But, how would a big screen feature utilize such a trick?