I’d imagine most of us have played The Oregon Trail at some point in our lives. After all, it was one of the very few video games that you were actually allowed to play in school — In that vein, does anyone else remember Math Blaster Plus? According to Collider, the iconic Oregon Trail video game is in the process of being developed into a movie musical by the folks behind Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck are collaborating with their songwriting team Pasek and Paul (Benj Pasek and Justin Paul) on the Oregon Trail movie. “We were talking about what we could cook up next, because we really want to do another musical,” Speck said. “They mentioned [Oregon Trail], and we now have the rights to it, and we’re putting it together alongside them and some other exciting people.”
Gordon added that the darkly comedic aspect of the video game is what drew them to the project. “[Oregon Trail] always had this dark band of humor running through it, because your chances of dying from everything from dysentery to a cut to anything was… Basically, every move you ended up dying,” Gordon said. “For us, that’s returning a little bit to our roots in comedy, marrying it with the fun of doing a big musical, and also just the ambition of taking that very seriously as well and making a big historical westward expansion epic that’s also about dying from dysentery.” Although a studio isn’t attached to the project at this time, the Oregon Trail movie is in active development, with Speck and Gordon trying to decide whether it should be an R-rated movie or something a little more family-friendly. There’s a lot of potential for comedy in the concept, and a show-stopping tune about dysentery would be worth the price of admission alone.
The Oregon Trail video game was first developed in 1971 and found players leading a group of settlers from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Along the way, you could trade for supplies, cross rivers, go hunting, and chances were extremely high that at least one member of your party would die of dysentery. The game has been updated many times over the decades, with the latest incarnation released by Apple just last year. Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile will hit theaters on October 7th.