’99 Nights in the Forest’: Josh Cooley to Pen 20th Century Studios’ Adaptation of Survival Horror Video Game (Exclusive)

The Disney studio arm has hired Josh Cooley, the animation filmmaker known for Toy Story 4 and Transformers One, to pen the live-action adaptation of video game 99 Nights in the Forest.

20th Century picked up theatrical film rights to the popular game, developed by Grandma’s Favourite Games and hosted on Roblox in the spring. The project marks the first time the division is tackling a feature adaptation of a video game.

While the rights were picked up clean and without attachments, the project now has horror legend Sam Raimi and frequent producing partner Rob Tapert on board as producers.

The game’s developers — Alec Kieft, Matthew Hufton and Cameron Angland of Grandma’s New Zealand-based Favourite Games — are executive producing, as are Romel Adam (Evil Dead Rise) and Jose Cañas (Play Dead).

99 Nights is an action-survival game where players must endure 99 nights in a haunted forest while attempting to rescue four lost children and fight the vicious creatures inhabiting the deep woods.

The game is relative new on the scene, introduced only in 2025, but quickly became the seventh-most-played game of all time on Roblox, as of spring, per 20th Century, boasting nearly 26 billion lifetime visits and a player rating of 90.6 percent.

It’s unclear what Cooley’s take is on the IP, but sources say 20th Century met with several scribes to hear pitches over the summer and fell for his.

Hailing from the Pixar animation world, Cooley was one of the writers of Pixar’s classic Inside Out, which earned him (and the writing team) an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay in 2016. In 2020, he won the Academy Award for best animated feature with his feature film directorial debut, Toy Story 4.

He most recently directed the first-ever fully CG-animated Transformers movie, Transformers One, with a star-studded voice cast that included Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key and Jon Hamm. (Clearly, he has a thing for numbers in his titles.)

Cooley is repped by WME, Untitled Entertainment and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.