I’m not going to lie. I don’t know anything about Magic: The Gathering. And I have no interest in the movie. But B. Alan is sleeping off a gallon of cornbread ice cream, and DrScreams couldn’t be bothered. That leaves me to drop the first casting news for this upcoming adaptation of the iconic game.
After what seems like a long wait, at least amongst fans, The Magic: The Gathering movie has finally made its first casting move. It has brought in a familiar face from Hawkins, Illinois.
Maya Hawke, best known for playing Robin Buckley on Stranger Things, is set to star in Legendary Entertainment and Hasbro Entertainment’s live-action adaptation of the enormously popular trading card game.
Her character has not been revealed, and the filmmakers are keeping the plot under wraps for now. But Hawke is expected to anchor an ensemble that has yet to be filled out. I’m a big fan, so her hiring actually gets me a little bit excited for whatever this is going to be.
As per Variety, The movie will be directed by Matt Johnson, whose previous work includes BlackBerry and Nirvanna the Band the Show. Johnson is also writing the screenplay alongside Noah Gardner (Super 8) and Aidan Fitzgerald (Calls). For anyone wondering whether the people making this movie actually understand the game, Johnson has a pretty convincing answer. He’s been a Magic: The Gathering fan for a long time, and apparently has the tournament memories to prove it.
Johnson shared a story about his own competitive ambitions, recalling a trip to Grand Prix Detroit when he was still in film school. He arrived believing he had a chance to make it to the second day of the tournament, and even entertained the idea of leaving school behind to become a professional Magic player. That dream didn’t last very long.
In Johnson’s telling, he was seated across from Magic pro Rich Hoaen during the first pod. By the fifth round, his record had gone from a promising start to a miserable 0-5. He described being so tilted that he sacrificed Lifespinner and a lethal board for a lone Jugan, only for his opponent to follow up with Rend Spirit. Within minutes, Johnson was driving back to Toronto, accepting that his professional Magic career was finished.
His message to fellow dreamers was considerably more encouraging: “In every pool, there is a day 2 deck.” It’s a wonderfully specific bit of tournament misery, and a much more entertaining way for a director to introduce himself to the game’s community than simply saying he has always loved the franchise.
For the uninitiated, like me (who is reading this all off a fan board dropped in my lap by a managing editor that doesn’t really seem to exist), Magic: The Gathering is a tabletop trading card game built around a multiverse of fantasy worlds.
Players take on the roles of powerful wizards known as Planeswalkers, using decks of cards to battle one another. The game’s enormous collection of characters, creatures, spells, and settings gives a movie adaptation plenty of material to draw from. Exactly which corners of that multiverse the film will explore, however, remains a mystery. And I can’t even speculate. I got no clue.
Hawke’s casting is the first major piece of information about the movie’s on-screen lineup. Along with her work on Stranger Things, she has appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, Do Revenge, and Bradley Cooper’s Maestro. She also supplied the voice of Anxiety in Pixar’s Inside Out 2. Her next major appearance will be in Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (which I hear Gen Z is just absolutely salivating over, I need to throw myself off a bridge).
There is already a little Magic: The Gathering news in the Let’s Scream archives for anyone who remembers our recent story about the game’s beef sticks. Yes, actual beef sticks.
The unexpected snack collaboration gave us another excuse to talk about a franchise that has managed to find its way into some pretty unusual corners of pop culture. Now Hollywood is getting involved, and this time the subject is a full-blown live-action movie.
With Hawke aboard, Johnson directing, and Legendary and Hasbro producing, the adaptation has taken its first step toward becoming a reality. And all things considered, it could be pretty weird and definitely worth my time.
I still don’t know who Hawke will play or what kind of adventure the filmmakers have planned across the Magic multiverse. For now, the most interesting card on the table is the person bringing the movie to life: a director who once considered giving up film school to chase a career playing the game himself. Then he made a movie about Anthony Bourdain that proved to be more of a love letter to ’70s cinema than an actual biopic.
Guys, Matt Johnson is completely unpredictable. I have confidence he’ll turn this into something truly memorable.
