You might not have actually played The Oregon Trail, but you’ve almost certainly heard about how difficult the RPG game is. You’re tasked with leading a family through the titular region of the American old west, trying to keep them alive against the elements. In most cases, everyone will die from dysentery.
The first videogame in the series came out in 1971, and has since made its way to just about every platform you can think off, across numerous sequels. The core gameplay hasn’t changed much, beyond some UI And graphical improvements to make it easier to understand
Anyway, the important part is that Collider is reporting that The Oregon Trail is becoming a big screen musical. Josh Gordon and Will Speck, who just directed adventure movie Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, revealed that they’re next going to start work on bringing The Oregon Trail to the big screen. The idea stemmed from their partnership with Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who’re big fans of the original game.
“They’ve both been very obsessed with Oregon Trail,” Speck told Collider. “We were talking about what we could cook up next, because we really want to do another musical. They mentioned that, and we now have the rights to it, and we’re putting it together alongside them and some other exciting people.”
Gordon and Speck mention how The Oregon Trailer holds a funny place in their childhood memories, because it was the only videogame they played in school, because it was advertised as educational. It was designed as a survival sim, to teach people about what it was like on the frontier back in the day. It certainly managed that.
Collider notes that Gordon and Speck are planning for this to be a comedy movie, like their earlier work on Blades of Glory and The Switch. They aren’t sure what age rating they’ll go for, however, because if you want to include dysentery, that might mean adults only.
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile is out now if you’d like to see what they’ve just been up to. You can play The Oregon Trail for free online through the Visit Oregon website.