Palladium Books has announced that Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films have optioned the Rifts RPG with the intent to develop a major live action motion picture.  Bruckheimer, who has produced Top Gun, Days of Thunder, The Rock, Con Air, Armageddon, Blackhawk Down, and the yet-to-be-released Pirates of the Caribbean, is a master of the explosive 'blockbuster' format.  Rifts creator Kevin Siembieda has been in discussions with Disney and Bruckheimer for nearly two years (see 'Rifts Movie Discussions Confirmed'); now the deal is done, although the development process for a major film often takes several years.

Rifts is a post-apocalyptic saga that combines science fiction and the supernatural in a future world where billions have died in a global conflict sending their psychic energy into mystic 'ley' lines of supernatural energy that criss cross the planet.  Where these lines intersect the fabric of space and time are torn apart, creating dimensional rifts into other worlds from which all manner of monsters, magic, and mayhem emerge.  The human survivors of the catastrophic combat eventually emerge to face a new and much more dangerous world filled with all sorts of alien and magical beings.  This quick summary of the RPG's basic world demonstrates that Rifts is a different sort of post-apocalyptic world that provides potential filmmakers with a myriad of options. It is no wonder that Bruckheimer is interested in the property or that the game and its supplements have quietly sold over 100,000 volumes in the dozen or so years it has been out.