Payday-in-Fortnite isn’t the day’s only big news out of everybody’s favorite violent clowns rob banks franchise. Starbreeze, in partnership with Vice Studios, has also done a deal with Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s G-Unit Film and Television to “executive produce” an adaptation of Payday.
What sort of adaptation is being made—that is, television or movie—isn’t specified. The deal between Starbreeze and Vice, announced in March, says only that the two will “adapt Payday for audiences beyond games, across screen and other formats,” and that’s the case in today’s announcement, too.
“G-Unit Film and TV has built cinematic crime stories that connect with audiences around the world,” said the man they call Fiddy (do they still call him that?). “Teaming up with Starbreeze and Vice Studios and bringing the world of Payday to the screen gives us the chance to build something big, a high-energy franchise that pushes the heist genre forward.”
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“Payday has always been about the fantasy of getting away with it,” Starbreeze CEO Adolf Kristjansson said. “Curtis and G-Unit don’t do subtle, and neither do we. This is not about playing it safe; it’s about doing the franchise justice with people who are as immersed in the world as we are.”
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Michael Mann, it’s that capping off your bank robbery with a running firefight against heavily armed cops is not a good idea, so I’m not sure how that “getting away with it” analogy really holds up here. Jackson does seem well suited to the task, though: His debut album is called Get Rich or Die Tryin’ and its followup was The Massacre, so if nothing else at least he’s got the right mindset.
He also appeared with Val Kilmer at the 2009 American Music Awards, for some reason.
Also unclear is how this jibes with Starbreeze’s 2023 deal with production company Stockholm Syndrome “to develop a Payday story for TV or film.” That isn’t mentioned in today’s announcement, so whether this new deal follows onto that one somehow or supersedes it entirely, I do not know—I’ve reached out to Starbreeze to ask, and will update if I receive a reply.
