Celine Song has found her next project, “Damage,” a series she’s currently developing for HBO set in the world of competitive E-Sports.
The “Materialists” and “Past Lives” filmmaker told Variety in an interview that she’s currently developing the series for HBO, but she declined to share any other specific plot information. An individual with knowledge of the project confirmed to IndieWire the series is in development.
Here’s the official logline: A gaming prodigy joins the ranks of a professional E-Sports team, where’s she’s taken under the wing of an older player with whom she shares a tragic past.
Song is writing, directing, and serving as executive producer on the series. Song will team with “The Last of Us” and “Chernobyl” creator Craig Mazin on the series, who is also joining as an executive producer. And A24, which produced both of Song’s films, is co-producing the series with HBO.
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Mazin, Jacqueline Lesko, and Cecil O’Connor are non-writing executive producers on behalf of their company, and Song’s collaborator David Hinojosa is also a non-writing executive producer.
It’s a big departure for Song, whose first two features have been indie love triangles (Song might disagree), though “Materialists” specifically has generated plenty of conversation for how it blends genres.
“Past Lives” from 2023 was nominated for two Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, and it served as a breakout role for lead Greta Lee. Her latest feature “Materialists,” which opens wide in theaters today from A24, stars Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal and stars Johnson as a romantic matchmaker.
E-Sports had been one of the burgeoning industries for a matter of years, with games like “League of Legends,” “Valorant,” “Call of Duty,” “Overwatch,” and others, and it has a sizable fanbase that has made hits out of shows like Netflix’s “Arcane,” a spinoff of “League of Legends” as produced by the game’s developer Riot Games. But while competitive leagues continue to generate revenue, it’s still largely been a niche industry trying to break into the mainstream. Hollywood, though, has seen video games become one of the biggest new realms to find intellectual property, so it only makes sense that HBO would want a piece of the action.
