Announcement of a Live-Action Persona Series in Development at Netflix

It seems that a live-action series based on the Persona series is in development at Netflix. According to a report by Variety, the streaming platform has begun work on adapting the popular role-playing game series from Sega and Atlus into a television series. Christopher Montpetit, known for his work on Star Trek: Picard and 9-1-1, will write the series, along with serving as executive producer and showrunner. Also involved in executive production are Shawn Levy and Robert Atwood from 21 Laps, along with Dmitri M. Johnson, Michael Lawrence Goldberg, and Timothy I. Stephenson from Story Kitchen, while Sega producer Tohru Nakahara also joins as an executive producer. Netflix declined to comment on the report when approached by Variety. It is still unclear whether the series will directly adapt the storyline of one of the games in the series or present a completely new story. Since the launch of Persona in 1996, five main entries have been released, along with numerous spin-off games and remakes, providing rich material for the series to draw upon. The most recent major release, Persona 5, introduced the Phantom Thieves characters upon its release in 2016, before its story expanded with Persona 5 Royal in 2024. Although no details about the story have been revealed yet, fans are expected to quickly start theorizing about the characters and elements that might appear in the series. As the project is still in its early stages, no information about the release date or cast has been announced yet. 21 Laps is one of Netflix's prominent partners, having previously collaborated on the series Stranger Things, which concluded its run late last year, and has also been involved in producing works like The Perfect Couple and Last Man Standing. Its film projects include Deadpool & Wolverine, directed by Shawn Levy, as well as Backrooms, while Levy is also working on Star Wars: Starfighter. Story Kitchen has a long track record of adapting video games, most notably the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog film series from Sega, and is currently working on projects adapted from games like Sifu, Life is Strange, Just Cause, and Life is Strange among others. It may be some time before the Persona series becomes a project ready for airing. Until then, Netflix is also trying to develop a movie based on Gears of War, while Atlus recently announced Persona 4 Revival and Persona 6 during this month’s Xbox Games Showcase.