Imagine the Minions, but with less personality. That’s what the phrase “emoji movie” brings to mind, anyway.
Sony has just won a multi-studio bidding war to make a movie about emoji, the little pictographs used in tweets and texts. In the annals of vacuous Hollywood film concepts, this is right up there with the Play-Doh movie.
Sony Animation Pictures signed a deal nearing seven figures for a movie concept pitched by writer-producers Eric Siegel (Men At Work) and Anthony Leondis (Igor, Lilo & Stitch 2). As Deadline points out, this doesn’t rule out another emoji movie at another studio, as the idea of an emoji story is not copyrighted in the same way as a branded product like Lego or Minecraft.
While it’s nice to imagine some talented filmmaker using emoji as the starting point for a genuinely interesting and original movie, the most likely outcome is a mediocre animated feature that relies on the existing popularity of emoji. But hey, we’d be happy to be proven wrong.
Photo via fill/Pixabay (PD)
