Sega's ninja game Shinobi to get the movie treatment

One of Sega's most popular games, Shinobi, will be made into a movie in a joint project with Universal Pictures, the Japanese gamemaker announced Wednesday, aiming to emulate the success of "The Super Mario Bros. Movie." Sega did not give a target date for the release but said it had "started the development of a film production" with the Hollywood behemoth. Shinobi was originally created for Japanese arcades in 1987 and features a ninja character who fights to stop a criminal organization that kidnaps child ninjas. It is the latest effort to cash in on a video-game adaptation craze after "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" became the second-highest grossing film of 2023, following a 2020 adaptation of Sega's "Sonic the Hedgehog." "Shinobi is one of Sega's most popular series worldwide, along with Sonic the Hedgehog," Sega said on Wednesday.