Movement from Amazon's Mass Effect TV Series, Fast & Furious 9 Writer Signed

M9: The Shepard Saga

by · Push Square

If the long-awaited launch of Dragon Age: The Veilguard wasn't enough to satiate your BioWare cravings, we've finally had an update on that Mass Effect TV series first reported in 2021. An adaptation is officially being developed at Amazon MGM Studios by Fast & Furious 9 writer Daniel Casey.

Word comes to us through an exclusive scoop from Variety (thanks, IGN). The outlet reports that EA's Michael Gamble, the director of the next Mass Effect game, has signed on as an executive producer, along with Karim Zreik and Ari Arad. Plot details are currently being kept under tight lock and key.

It was reported back in 2021 that Amazon was in negotiations to strike a deal on a Mass Effect TV adaptation, and there have been various attempts at getting a film off the ground over the years. We fell off the Fast & Furious series well before the ninth instalment and thus are unfamiliar with Casey's work, but Zreik served on both Marvel's Daredevil and The Punisher shows. Meanwhile, Arad was involved in the unfortunate Borderlands movie that was recently bombed, as well as the Uncharted film and the original Iron Man, which we liked.

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What do you think? Does this latest Mass Effect attempt sound like a more serious effort? Do you think the project will be Shepard-related? Let us know in the comments section below.

[source variety.com]

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About Khayl Adam

Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the richest, most succulent PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.

Comments 31

It's like they just want to lose money.

Isn't Fast and Furious 9 the worst of the series... It had so much potential with the entire franchise cast being in one film.

Off course it doesn't mean that this will be evenly bad written but it does not bode well.

Please be good 🥹🥹

This can be problematic if they make it about Shepard's story because of the choice of Shep's gender in the games. I know about 80% of players chose bro Shep but for myself, Commander Shepard will always be a she. And I can imagine the backlash if they made this with Femshep.
It will probably be gash anyway.

We can hope for a Fallout scenario but prepare for a Far Cry situation.

I won't write this off until I at least see a trailer, Personally I hope they go for a prequel, maybe even go for discovering the Relay and the brief war with the Turians...

Lol I’m shifting my focus to Exodus instead. At least they have Peter F Hamilton writing for them.

Might be OK, be considering the universe probably requires big budget , space travel, different planets etc.
I won't judge until episode 1
I mean twisted metal really didn't seem like a good idea, but it's actually brilliant, Last of Us outstanding, but any other game to tv has been Meh

@ApostateMage This is sadly a very real problem on the horizon.

More to the point though, Shep is a character without a personality. It is your choice to make them good or evil, social or a loner etc. You will never be able to please the majority of people.

I think they're going to struggle to pull off Mass Effect as a TV show. It really needs a high production value.

The background setting bits of Mass Effect is great for a TV show. If they can pull off the genophage in a morally neutral way, it's great material. But I don't know what I'd want from an episode to episode plot? Do I really get excited about a Shepherd action scene?

As I wrote in the TV Show forum thread before this article appeared, I can't muster any enthusiasm for this project with these people involved. I'm a big fan of the silliness, stupidity and brashness of the Fast & Furious franchise, but I don't want any of that in my Mass Effect, thank you very much.

In my opinion, the only way this can conceivably succeed is if they
a) avoid retelling Shepard's story
b) make it animation to get more alien bang for the buck

(noted, "Arcane" has proven that animation can be excessively expensive, but I think you can tell more fantastical stories cheaper with animation than with live-action, in general)

My dream setting would be a story that's "Shepard adjacent". It takes place in the same timeline, but does not feature Shepard herself, except maybe some vague references. Other characters from the game could make brief cameos as fan service, but the story should be wholly original, in my opinion

@ShadowofSparta Exodus has indeed passed the next Mass Effect on my excite-o-meter and that Hamilton novel really delivered for me. Hopefully the game does as well!

I don't get it.
Why on earth would a studio hire such a bad writer to adapt something with such huge potential as Mass Effect for them?

Lucasfilm just did the same, by the way, by hiring Simon Kinberg to write the next Star Wars trilogy. You know, the guy who wrote Dark Phoenix, Fant4stic, The 355, Jumper and X-Men: The Last Stand. 🤦

@valtianeea It's almost reminiscent of the Uwe Boll era of "let's finance cr@p movies for tax purposes". The mind boggles; they would probably have a better chance of success hiring unproven writers without a single writing credit to their name than hiring creators of notorious flops

@FuriousMachine
I'm starting to think the good writers and directors don't want to risk losing their name anymore with these big franchises. Which would be a big problem for franchise filmmaking going forward.

Not that I'd mind too much though. I'm more of an indie and world cinema moviegoer myself.

Fast and Furious 9 you say?

So it's a Rings of Power scenario, not a Fallout scenario.

That's sad.

The Fast 9 guy? That's...concerning. I love Mass Effect so I'll give it a shot but the only Fast & Furious movie I like was the original. The series just got too goofy for me to take it seriously.

The fact that there has been 10 F&F movies is crazy...

The Normandy will have a nos intake, heckspoiler and alien girls in hot pants... and family of course... what can go wrong!?

@tameshiyaku It is just so wrong that I suddenly wanted to see that

Seen as amazon acquired the rights to the expanse I'd try and get the guys that did that on board rather than the fast and furious guy. I'd trust them to get the tone right

@QualityGeezer Yeah, absolutely. Now that they've exited the God of War adaptation, they should be free to tackle this. They worked on "Iron Man" with Arad, so I would be surprised if they weren't approached, or at least on a shortlist, when GoW fell through. Casey feels all kinds of wrong for this, but he seems to be the guy they went with, for whatever reason.

@FuriousMachine yeah they would seem to be the perfect fit. Only thing I can think of is maybe they didn't want to do another space opera or maybe they are hoping amazon revives the expanse so they can adapt the remaining books

Hopefully it will be either Fallout quality or Rings of Power quality. Both scenarios will be very entertaining, if for different reasons. 😁

@QualityGeezer Quite possible, and I wouldn't blame them for either of those reasons. Would love to see the adaptation of the final books. Been a little while since I read them now, but I think it would possible to adapt them fairly faithfully without having the massive time jump (I may be forgetting aspects that wouldn't work without it, though)

Dead on arrival

More Mass Effect is always welcomed, I have hope it'll be good!!!

If not... oh well, at least we getting another game!!

Nah, I'm ignoring the haters, this is good news. F9 was not the best in the series, but still very enjoyable.

And there's no better fit for Mass Effect than a Fast and Furious writer. Action packed, dysfunctional family dynamics, cheesy one liners, you name it.

I'd say go one step further, get Justin Lin to direct it and Vin Diesel as Shepard and I'm there frame 1.

LET'S GOOOOOO!!

I'm definitely down for a new sci-fi space series. I still miss the glorious 90s when there were seemingly hundreds of them.

@QualityGeezer Expanse quality went way down when it transition to Amazon. It had all the hallmarks of a boss lumping a project they didn't want, which is what rumour to have happens, Bazos demanded they picked up The Expanse.

I would have prefered the show to have been done by Apple, which have one shown it will fund a show even if its numbers are small, an fund them well. An well it frankly the home of science fiction at the moment.

Being everyone in that worked in Farscape. Actors. Special effects. Writers. Everything. 👍

I'm a Femshep preferee. Only because the bloke voice actor was so wooden.
So if its a Shep story there will be disappointment abound because everyone sees Shep their way.
But am prepared to be entertained, the expanse made a good citadel like space station. But Shohreh Aghdashloo has already done that too. Many reasons why the day has passed.

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