After Angry Birds, Temple Run set for a big screen debut

Warner Bros. is said to be in negotiations to bring popular game Temple Run to the big screen.

According to a report by The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. has Harry Potter producer David Heyman on board and is in the process of finalising a deal that would see the popular game by Imangi Studios follow Rovio's Angry Birds to the big screen. Heyman and Warner Bros. go back a long way, with the Englishman having produced all eight Harry Potter films as well as this year's big hit Gravity, for the studio.

The story of Temple Run the movie would reportedly centre on an explorer who, having stolen an idol from a temple, is chased by demonic forces, just like in the game.

Temple Run is a popular 'endless running' mobile game that made its debut on Apple's iOS in August 2011. The game was a huge hit, even though it was originally 99 cents to download. Imangi later switched the game to a freemium app i.e. a free app with in-app purchases. At various points, the game became the most popular free, as well as top grossing app, on the App Store. In March 2012, the game made its debut on Android as a freemium app, and was downloaded over a million times in just 3 days.

In January 2013, Temple Run 2 was released, again on iOS first, and downloaded over 20 million times in just 4 days. A week later, Temple Run 2 came to Android, and soon became the fastest growing mobile game of all times. In March, the original Temple Run finally made its debut on Microsoft's Windows Phone platform.

While this will be the first time that Temple Run will inspire a movie, there have been earlier instances of Imangi working with studios to create movie-inspired games. Imangi collaborated with Disney to release Temple Run: Brave, inspired by the movie Brave. Later, the two also worked together to release Temple Run: Oz.