Sony has bought a script about a game app that kills the players. Unfortunately, it has the truly atrocious name /reddoor. There is no way that name survives.
Another red door in a movie where people die while in an altered reality (Image: Nightmare on Elm Street, New Line Cinema)
According to Deadline, /reddoor follows a journalist who finds out a game he’s reviewing can kill players once they enter the game’s world. Also, he’s somehow managed to get his sister entangled in the game. Oops.
Sony wants — of course — to turn /reddoor into a franchise. It’s supposedly “in the spirit of The Ring and Ready Player One“, but I’m kind of getting a “murdery Tron” vibe from the description.
Look, if Sony really wants a franchise they will ditch the backslash in the name. As it stands, the title makes the movie almost unsearchable. Half the time, your computer thinks you’re trying to give it a command. The other half it thinks you’re trying to find a subreddit. Even putting quotations marks around the name doesn’t help. I just get pictures of literal red doors as Google assumes I’m an idiot that meant to put a space there and didn’t mean the slash.
This movie has a semi-intriguing premise and a name that sinks it before it even gets made. So prepare yourself for seeing “previously called /reddoor” when it’s actually made.