Netflix is reportedly making a live-action Persona series

A live-action television adaptation of the Persona role-playing game franchise is currently in development at Netflix. According to a new report from Variety, unnamed sources claim the streaming platform hired writer Christopher Monfette to be the showrunner. Netflix declined to comment on the rumor.

If the rumor holds true, the project has some heavy hitters attached. Shawn Levy's 21 Laps Entertainment is reportedly on board to executive produce. That production company already has a massive overall television deal with Netflix and is best known for Stranger Things. Hiring the Stranger Things crew is a very deliberate choice for a show about teenagers fighting supernatural entities in alternate dimensions.

Story Kitchen, the production banner co-founded by Sonic the Hedgehog film producer Dmitri M. Johnson, is also attached to the project alongside Sega executive Toru Nakahara. Story Kitchen has essentially cornered the market on video game adaptations lately. Beyond the Sonic movies, they produced the recent Tomb Raider animated series and are currently working on an adaptation of It Takes Two. Bringing them in alongside 21 Laps suggests Netflix wants a team that understands both video game source material and teenage ensemble dramas.

Good luck adapting the calendar system

Translating an Atlus RPG to live-action television is going to be a massive undertaking. The Persona games spun off from the darker Shin Megami Tensei series back in 1996 and are famous for their rigid time-management mechanics. Players spend half their time studying for exams, working part-time jobs, and hanging out with classmates. The other half is spent crawling through psychological dungeons.

The core appeal of the franchise is how those two halves interact. The friendships you build in the real world directly power up the supernatural entities you summon in combat. It is a brilliant gameplay loop, but it relies heavily on player agency. I am very curious to see how a television writer paces a story where the protagonist canonically spends three straight days eating massive burgers to raise their courage stat.

From Star Trek to Sega

Monfette brings a resume filled with genre television. He previously wrote for Syfy's 12 Monkeys adaptation and Paramount's Star Trek: Picard. He will need to distill a franchise that typically demands 100 hours of playtime into a standard streaming season.

Netflix has spent the last few years aggressively building out its video game adaptation catalog. The platform already hosts live-action versions of The Witcher and Resident Evil, alongside animated hits like Arcane, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. A high-school supernatural drama fits perfectly into their current programming strategy.

Pick up Persona 4 Golden on Humble Bundle.

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