Stardew Valley is 10 years old this month: happy 10th birthday, Stardew! The beloved farming sim is still as popular as ever, with nearly 50 million copies sold and tens of thousands of players every single day. So why hasn't it ever had a TV or film adaptation?
It's a fair question, right? Video game TV and film adaptations have become wildly popular in recent years, and are finally seeing widespread success with shows like The Last of Us and Fallout and films like Sonic the Hedgehog (and sequels), Detective Pikachu, A Minecraft Movie, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Stardew is widely loved and seems like it'd be easy enough to adapt, especially into some kind of series about Pelican Town and its inhabitants. So where is it?
Speaking to game creator Eric Barone (ConcernedApe) ahead of and in honor of the 10th anniversary, I asked him if he'd ever been approached to do a movie or TV adaptation of Stardew Valley. Unshockingly, he told me he had been approached; "many times," as a matter of fact. So why didn't he ever agree to have one made?
"I think the main reason is that I would be worried that I wouldn't be happy with the final result. Stardew Valley is very much about the characters and the world and the tone of the game. So to take those characters, which, they don't have voices in the game. You have to use your imagination a bit to fill in the gaps, which I think makes the game more personal to every player. They're filling in the gaps. If it becomes a movie or a TV show, suddenly those gaps are all filled for you.
"One example I'll use is Harry Potter. When I read the books, I had my own idea of what Harry looked like, what Ron looked like and everything. Then you see the movies. I can't remember what my own idea was anymore. It's all just now what the movies are. Same with Lord of the Rings or any of these IPs. With Stardew Valley, I'm a little bit wary of taking that step because I feel like it might- I care about Stardew Valley so much that I don't- Even though it would be cool to see Stardew Valley on the silver screen and drive by a movie theater and see Stardew Valley on the marquee, that would be cool, but it's like, 'Is it really the best for Stardew Valley?' I guess that's my worry.
"And I could potentially imagine it being cool. That's why I said once, that if David Lynch had wanted to make a Stardew Valley movie in the style of Twin Peaks or something, I would've been like, 'Yeah, great. You can do whatever you want, Mr. Lynch.' Honestly, I would've let him just do whatever. I think it would've been great. Especially if it's like this mainstream Hollywood Stardew Valley. It's like, 'Is this really the heart and soul of what Stardew Valley is about?' And I'm sure someone could do a great job, but it feels like it's a bit of a roll of the dice."
Barone hasn't been shy about his love for Lynch in past interviews, so earlier in the interview I asked him to talk a bit more about what he admired about the late filmmaker's work and its influence on him, especially given Lynch passed away last year. Here's what Barone had to say:
"I feel like David Lynch, he was… He just had a transcendental understanding of the world. And you could see it in his art. I never met the man, and unfortunately I never knew him, but I felt like in his art, I always felt a connection. There's something about David Lynch, he's connected to the spiritual world it almost feels like and that always appealed to me. And another thing I really admired about him is that he never seemed to really try to be popular. He always seemed to be authentic to himself and his artistic vision, for better or for worse, in terms of popularity.
"Twin Peaks season two was very abrasive. Not a lot of people, I think, would necessarily enjoy it, but I felt like David Lynch was just being true to himself and he didn't care about whether this was going to be a commercial success. He just stuck to his guns and I really admire that. I just think that in general, the world needs more artists who are pure and not necessarily trying to be popular. That's the stuff that I like best is when, you might call it Outsider Art almost, because it's just a random person's unique vision. And I feel like everyone has this capacity, but a lot of people will instead be influenced by what's popular or what might be successful.
"And I would just hope that people would instead just stick to their true vision. I want to see everyone's unique perspective and vision. And David Lynch was the ultimate form of that, in my opinion. And I just liked his stuff. I mean, I loved Eraserhead, Twin Peaks, The Straight Story. Again, even in The Straight Story, which was not very avant-garde, it was his most wholesome, straightforward movie, but you could kind of still feel the David Lynch essence in it. And I always love that when you can just tell this is a certain artist's thing. No matter what they do, they just have this unique flare that you can always pick up on."
We're celebrating Stardew's tenth birthday this month with a bumper crop of stories. We interviewed ConcernedApe and chatted about topics such as the addition of two new marriage candidates with 1.7, the one secret players still haven't found yet, and how Haunted Chocolatier is doing. We also spoke with the Stardew Valley community about what the game has meant to them over the years.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
