Whether you see it as a fun extension of a much-loved app or a portent of the coming apocalypse heralding doom and pestilence across the land, the Fruit Ninja movie is happening. According to The Hollywood Reporter's scoop, rights to the sword-slashing fruit salad game have been secured by New Line and a film is officially in the works.
Employing some of the same swiping techniques as Tinder, Fruit Ninja is a test of reflexes, judgment and the patience of your loved ones. It involves chopping flying fruit without exploding the floating bombs deviously mixed up amid all the soaring vitamin C.
Writing the scripts are J.P. Lavin and Chad Damiani, the pair behind Sony Animation's How To Survive A Garden Gnome Attack. The story will involved "a team of misfits who are recruited to become Fruit Ninjas in order to save the world".
So not an origin story for the fruit itself involving orchards, growing seasons and harvests, but still not an obviously narrative-led premise. Then again, as the likes of Battleship and Angry Birds have demonstrated, such movies rarely bear much resemblance to its source material anyway.
Journey To The Center Of The Earth producer Tripp Vinson will be overseeing the project in cahoots with Australian developers Halfbrick Studios. He'll be resuming a long-standing relationship with New Line and will be hoping it, ahem, bears fruit.