Fortnite developer Epic Games moves into film with a grant for animated pic Gilgamesh

By Sam Barsanti | January 21, 2021 | 7:05pm

Aux Features Video gaming

Fortnite developer Epic Games moves into film with a grant for animated pic Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh owning some lions Photo: ullstein bild

Fortnite is a pretty big deal, earning developer and publisher Epic Games somewhere in the vicinity of infinite money every month thanks to pricey premium skins and a new $12 subscription service (Fortnite is a “free” video game, clearly), but Epic is now going to do something with all of that money that does not involve funding bizarre and tone-deaf attack ads against Apple. As reported by Deadline, the company is supporting an animated film by Latin American animation studio Hook Up and Argentinian production companies DuermeVela and FilmSharks through its $100 million Epic MegaGrants program. Rather than a Fortnite movie about the banana guy and Travis Scott (the two most famous Fortnite characters) fighting against an army of teenagers who are way better at the game than they are, though, the project will actually be an original film based on The Epic Of Gilgamesh. The film is just one of the recipients of the sizable grant.

Deadline says the movie will be released in Spanish and English, and it will be made using Epic’s Unreal Engine—so don’t be surprised if it looks a bit like Fortnite, though The Mandalorian also famously uses the Unreal Engine to power its virtual sets. For those who don’t know the story of Gilgamesh, he was a figure in Mesopotamian mythology with a great big beard who went on various heroic adventures, and his story served as an inspiration for various other mythological tales from history (like the Iliad and Odyssey).