‘Medieval Times’ Restaurant Getting Its Own Movie

Welcome to Medievaaaaaaaaal Tiiiiiiiiiimes! (The movie.)

In news that will make you wonder “Is everything IP now?” comes word that Paramount is in “early development” on what is described as a “live-action, four-quadrant, family comedy” based on the Medieval Times themed restaurant. That’s the one where guests show up to a building that looks like a castle, and then dine on rustic fare with zero utensils (you gotta slurp your soup straight out of the bowl) while watching a performance featuring knights on horseback competing in various ancient games of sport.

The first Medieval Times opened in Florida in 1983 and there are now ten of them in the United States and Canada. The film version, according to Deadline, will take a fantasy/time travel approach to the material:

When a struggling employee at the Orlando Medieval Times accidentally unleashes a real 9th-century knight, along with an ancient evil necromancer, he has to team up with the feral warrior to save the castle, then the world, and finally win the respect he’s always craved.

The project will be directed by Eric Appel, who made the “Weird Al” Yankovic biopic spoof Weird and recently directed Nate Bargatze’s The Breadwinner. The project’s screenplay was written by Blaise Hemingway.

I went to Medieval Times a couple of (medieval) times as a kid, and I saw this television commercial growing up in suburban New Jersey about 6,000,000,000 times.

READ MORE: A Brief History of Movie Tie-In Foods and Products

While many children of the ’80s and ’90s have fond memories of the jousts and sword fights and paper crowns at Medieval Times, the brand’s biggest pop culture legacy remains its inclusion in the Jim Carrey movie The Cable Guy, where Carrey’s character takes his buddy for a night out to the restaurant, and then manages to get the two of them inserted into the show

Believe it or not, this is not the first time that the Hollywood trades have reported about a potential Medieval Times movie in development. Way back in 2013, we got word of a similar Medieval Times project that never got off the ground. Will this batch of filmmakers have more luck? They might; Hollywood’s even more IP crazy than they were 13 years ago.

All I have to say is: I am already sweating bullets about the potential tie-in menu opportunities.