Dredge, the vibes-heavy indie hit about fishing on a sea of otherworldly horrors, is being made into a movie

GamesHorrorDredgeDredge, the vibes-heavy indie hit about fishing on a sea of otherworldly horrors, is being made into a movieWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Team17)

Dredge Abyssal and Hadal fishing - a guy driving a boat

Some videogames are obvious candidates for big-screen translations, and some are not. The fishing-horror gameDredge, I think, falls into the latter category, but guess what? AVarietyreport says a movie based on Dredge is now in the works.

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The issue is that vibes are what it’s all about: You go fishing and, if you’re not careful, you wind up in a “brilliantly unnerving” world of Lovecraft-flavored unpleasantness. That could serve as an effective framework for a creepy horror flick, but there’s not exactly a lot of plot and characters in the game to build a movie around.

On the other hand, Dredge developer Black Salt Games has partnered with production company Story Kitchen to make the film, and Story Kitchen seems to know a thing or two about turning story-light concepts into full-blown flicks: One of its founders is Dmitri Johnson, the co-producer of the shockingly successful (after some work)Sonic the Hedgehog film. Story Kitchen has also signed deals to make films out of hit games (but thin narrative gruel) includingSifu,Vampire Survivors, andSlime Rancher.

“We are excited to partner with such an experienced studio team to bring the world we created to live action and ignite the imagination of audiences across the globe,” Black Salt Games said in a statement. Johnson, the Story Kitchen co-founder, described Dredge as “a captivatingly eerie and profoundly rich story that had us completely hooked from the very beginning!”

This is all very early in the process, so don’t expect to be heading off to the theaters to see the Dredge film anytime soon. In fact, things are still at the stage where the traditional “who would you cast” question is being asked:

(Image credit: Black Salt Games (Twitter))

When we first had producers approach us, we thought it couldn’t possibly be real! We were blown away by how much our new partners at @Story_Kitchen_ understood about DREDGE & excited about how they’ll weave that understanding into a live action adaptation. What do you think are the critical parts to get right in a movie adaptation of DREDGE? Who would you cast in this cozy fishing horror?

I really have no idea on that one just yet—the best I can come up with off the top of my head is throwing Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson together again for a sort ofLighthousesuccessor, an idea that’is probably both impractical and ill-conceived. Staff writer Harvey Randall has somewhat stronger feelings about it: He wants to see Nic Cage and Markiplier cast in the film, for reasons he didn’t explain and I cannot fathom—another metaphorical mystery of the murky black sea.

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