Skydance Television has acquired the global rights to create a live-action television series based on the Sword Art Online series of 22 light novels by Reki Kawahara, which have also spawned manga, anime, and video game adaptations.  The Sword Art Online manga published here by Yen Press is the #10 manga property in North America according to ICv2’s most recent survey in Internal Correspondence (see “Top 10 Manga Franchises—Spring 2016”).  The Sword Art Online novels, which have sold 19 million copies worldwide, manga, and anime are all set in the near future and involve virtual reality massive multiplayer online roleplaying games.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Laeta Kalogridis (Avatar, Terminator Genisys, White House Down) is writing a pilot for the TV series that Skydance hopes to fast track (no network is attached yet).  The series will focus on a young beta tester and his friends who are trapped inside the next generation virtual reality MMORPG along with 10,000 other people—and all sorts of fantasy monsters that raise the stakes to matters of life and death.

Not surprisingly Skydance plans to launch a SAO virtual reality experience through the company’s interactive division.  The SAO property has also inspired a collectible card game release (see “Sword Art Online Tournaments”).