Ubisoft's Rabbids Movie in the Works at Lionsgate

Ubisoft is working on a movie featuring its beloved Rabbids characters, new reports have confirmed. The Rabbids characters are a bunch of wild rabbit-like creatures who've embarked on all kinds of adventures, sometimes on their own and sometimes with others like Nintendo's Mario, and their next adventure will take them to the big screen. The movie will reportedly be a mix between animation and live-action sequences much like we've seen other movies do recently.

Deadline first reported on the news of the Rabbids movie that Lionsgate now has the rights for. According to the reports, Mandeville Films' Todd Lieberman and David Hoberman will produce alongside Ubisoft Film & Television's Jason Altman and Margaret Boykin. Isn't It Romantic's Todd Strauss-Schulson is currently in talks to direct the film with Alex Young on board as an executive producer.

The script was previously developed at Sony and is currently being handled by Matt Senreich, Tom Sheppard and Zeb Wells, all of which are known for their work on Robot Chicken.

Rabbids have been featured in numerous Ubisoft games over the years after they were first created as enemies before later being turned into protagonists. Perhaps the most surprising Rabbids game to be revealed by Ubisoft was the one-of-a-kind Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle crossover between Mario and Rabbids where the rabbit creatures dressed up like Mario characters as seen in the trailer above. Ubisoft has continued to expand on the Rabbids brand since then by releasing things like a free coding game featuring the Rabbids that taught players of all ages how to code.

Ubisoft also has several other projects being worked on now that look to take its various series beyond video games. Months ago, it was announced that Castlevania's Adi Shankar was working on an animated show based on Ubisoft's Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, the acclaimed expansion to Far Cry 3. An animated TV show based on Ubisoft's Watch Dogs series is also in the works with tweens being the target audience.

The live-action and animation hybrid approach to the film is also one that we've seen in the past and in upcoming movies. Detective Pikachu had great success with that style of movie, and even though the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog film had to redesign its Sonic from the ground up, it appears people are more in favor of the movie now.

No release timeframe for Ubisoft and Lionsgate's currently unnamed Rabbids movie has been announced yet.