Following the success of Barbie, Margot Robbie is producing the live-action The Sims movie you've been hearing about forever

Like it or not, Barbie is one of those Hollywood success stories that have a years-long impact across the whole movie industry, and perhaps the most important person behind it was Margot Robbie, its star, who also produced the movie through her LuckyChap Entertainment company. Her next mission? Repeating the magic trick with EA Maxis' The Sims franchise.

Even before making $1.44 billion globally at the box office (becoming WB's highest-grossing movie ever), earning the critics and audiences' trust, and taking home one Oscar win, the movie had already kickstarted an IP-to-movie frenzy at Mattel. It also sent co-writer and director Greta Gerwig towards another huge project: new Chronicles of Narnia movies for Netflix.

Now, Hollywood insider Jeff Sneider has dropped this fascinating news about The Sims, also claiming that (busy) Loki season 1 director Kate Herron was attached to write and direct the movie. Variety later confirmed Sneider's exclusive, adding that Herron is set to co-write the daring adaptation with Briony Redman (The Inside Man). The writing duo have recently collaborated on the script for a new Doctor Who episode, and Herron is next set to direct an episode of The Last of Us season 2.

A live-action movie based on The Sims is an idea that has been floating around for as long as we can remember, which doesn't come as a surprise. The long-running video game franchise is among the most profitable of all time, and its mainstream appeal is off the charts. But of course, The Sims isn't exactly known for intricate plots, as the games are basically a 'create-your-own-life-and-story' kind of deal.

Looking at how Robbie and the creative team behind Barbie approached the Mattel IP, there might be a 'meta' angle there that could work with the right scribes, so we're probably getting an exploration of what it means to be an NPC character in someone else's game or something along those lines, though that's something that The LEGO Movie and Free Guy, among others, already explored with a respectable level of success.

What we know for sure is that we wouldn't like to be behind the keyboard writing this one, especially given how passionate the series' fanbase is.