Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and “Shang-Chi,” will produce.

Sea of Thieves live-action movie in the works as Xbox plans more than a dozen adaptations (exclusive)

Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" and "Shang-Chi," will produce.

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in Vanity Fair, Vulture, IGN, and more.

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June 22, 2026 12:10 p.m. ET

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A 'Sea of Thieves' live-action movie is in the works. Credit:

XBOX Game Studios

- A *Sea of Thieves* live-action movie, based on the video game, is in the works.

- Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed *Spider-Man: Brand New Day*, will produce.

- Xbox plans for more than a dozen adaptation projects, including *Sea of Thieves*.

Xbox continues to chart a course through Hollywood.

Following the success of *A Minecraft Movie* in theaters and the *Fallout* TV series on streaming, a *Sea of Thieves* live-action movie is now in the works, ** can exclusively confirm as part of a cover story on Xbox.

Marvel’s Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed Marvel's *Spider-Man: Brand New Day* and *Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings*, is on board to produce the film through Hisako, his multimedia production company. A director has not been set.

*Sea of Thieves* is an open-world action-adventure sandbox game, created by the developers at Rare and published by Xbox Game Studios. The goal is to explore a vast open world as a pirate, completing voyages, forging alliances with other players, battling skeletons, looting lost treasure, and more.

'Sea of Thieves'.

XBOX Game Studios

"The main character of a *Sea of Thieves* game is actually the player and the community," Matt Booty, the Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer at Xbox, tells EW. "So if you sit down to think about *Sea of Thieves*, it's not, *Who are the main characters?* *What's the plot?* It's a super social game, but there's a tone to *Sea of Thieves*. It's built on a very cooperative community, so you can start to sense what that's going to be like."

The new film is one of more than a dozen different adaptation projects based off of Xbox titles that are in the works, EW has learned.

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That figure includes *Sea of Thieves*, plus the titles already announced: *A Minecraft Movie Squared* (sequel to 2025's *A Minecraft Movie*) at Warner Bros., a live-action movie and animated series based on *Gears of War* at Netflix, a *Minecraft* animated series (also at Netflix), a *Wolfenstein* live-action TV show at Amazon, the continuing saga of *Fallout*, and a reality TV offering with *Fallout Shelter*.

The others are being kept under wraps for the time being as deals firm up.

*A Minecraft Movie*, from director Jared Hess, became the fifth highest-grossing movie at the box office in 2025. Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Jennifer Coolidge, and Danielle Brooks starred.

'Sea of Thieves'.

XBOX Game Studios

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*Fallout*, which concluded a second season on Prime Video this past February, is now the second most-watched TV show on the Amazon streaming platform. Ella Purnell, Walton Goggins, and Aaron Moten will return for season 3, which recently announced newcomers Emily Mortimer (*Jay Kelly*), Manny Jacinto (*The Acolyte*), and Thomasin McKenzie (*Jojo Rabbit*).

Given that success, Xbox hopes to leverage more IP as Hollywood continues to seek out video games for adaptation material.

"You won't see us try to become the biggest linear provider in the world or anything like that, but I think great games are culture, and culture is entertainment," Asha Sharma, the newly minted CEO of Xbox, says. "If you think about it, we've got the number two show of all time on Amazon [*Fallout*], *Minecraft* was top 5 in 2025, *Call of Duty* is bigger than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So it all measures. [There's] more appetite to work with us on titles than ever before."

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