Xbox Forms New Division Focused on Film and TV Adaptations

Xbox has created a new entertainment division, called XP (for “Experience Points”), that is “focused on helping Xbox franchises reach fans beyond gameplay through film and television adaptations, consumer products, partnerships, and live experiences.” Kayleen Walters, currently president of Minecraft studio Mojang and formerly of Lucasfilm and executive producer of A Minecraft Movie, will be XP’s president. Maria Angelidou-Smith joins Xbox as Mojang CEO.

“XP was created from a simple but powerful belief: the world’s most beloved gaming franchises have an opportunity to reach people far beyond the boundaries of the game itself,” Walters said in an email (obtained by The Hollywood Reporter) to her team. “Fans don’t just play our franchises. They watch them, wear them, attend them, celebrate them, and connect with them in countless ways. XP brings together the teams responsible for helping Xbox franchises show up in the world in bigger, more meaningful ways.”

To be clear, XP is not a production company. Rather, it is a new division that aims to match Xbox’s IP with the right production company. XP wants to replicate A Minecraft Movie‘s runaway success for popular Xbox franchises like Call of Duty, Fallout, Warcraft, Gears of War, Candy Crush, Diablo, Forza, The Elder Scrolls and Halo. (Yes, Fallout has already had success as an Amazon Prime Video series — season three is on the way — and Halo has already failed as a Paramount series, but there are more opportunities for adaption.)

A Minecraft Movie, the top-earning film of 2025, has a sequel (Minecraft Squared) in production. There’s also a Minecraft theme park being built for 2027, which would fall under the XP’s four areas of investment: Pictures, Products, Partnerships, and Places.

Further, a Call of Duty movie from Taylor Sheridan and Peter Berg is in the works, a Diablo animated series for Netflix has been announced, and a new project with Hideo Kojima, PHYSINT, is already looking toward film and TV adaptation opportunities.

Xbox has been undergoing major restructuring under Sharma. There have been thousands of layoffs and quite a few studios shuttered.

Sharma, the Xbox CEO, sent the below memo (also obtained by THR) to staff announcing the formation of XP:

Team,
At Town Hall on Tuesday, I talked about the four Cs and the choices we are making to put them into practice. You’ve seen a lot of our work on Core and Content. Today I want to share two leadership appointments supporting Creator and Connection. Kayleen Walters will transition from her role as President of Mojang to President of XP, a new XBOX division focused on how people experience our franchises beyond the games themselves, and Maria Angelidou-Smith will join XBOX as CEO of Mojang and Minecraft.

Kayleen has spent her career building entertainment franchises. Before XBOX, she spent 13 years at Lucasfilm helping guide Star Wars across films, products, and partnerships. At Minecraft, she helped grow consumer products into a multibillion-dollar business with more than 250 licensees and was Executive Producer of A Minecraft Movie, the biggest film in the U.S. last year and a top-five release worldwide. She is also a producer of the sequel.

XP is a play on “Experience Points” and formalizes four investment areas for us: XBOX PICTURES for film and television adaptations; XBOX PRODUCTS for licensing and merchandise; XBOX PARTNERSHIPS for sponsors and brand partners; and XBOX PLACES for our marquee broadcast and in-person events, theme parks, and other location-based experiences. Our franchises can mean more to people than the time they spend playing them, and Kayleen knows how to build those experiences with the industry without losing what made people care about the franchise in the first place.

Kayleen’s move also gave us time to think carefully about what Mojang needs in its next leader.

Minecraft is one of the largest communities in entertainment. Hundreds of millions of people play, build, create, teach, watch, mod, run servers, and build businesses around Minecraft. The community doesn’t just consume the product. It helps shape what the product becomes. That was central to our search. Mojang already has an exceptional game development team that knows Minecraft and its players deeply. We wanted someone who has built products for communities at enormous scale, who is deeply technical, and who understands how creators, product, technology and monetization come together.

Maria brings a rare combination of those experiences. She spent nearly a decade at Meta, where she led Facebook Groups used by more than 1.8 billion people each month, as well as Events, Creators, Search, Profile, and Monetization. She later led product and technology at Personio and served as Chief Product Officer at Reddit, another of the world’s largest community platforms. She has built products used by billions of people and led product and engineering organizations through significant growth and change.

She will bring that experience to Mojang while learning from the people who know Minecraft best. Her first order of business is for her to learn from the teams and communities that make Minecraft so special.

I’ll be in Stockholm next week to spend time with the team and talk through the transition in person. Maria starts Monday, October 19, at the Bear Creek office.

Please join me in congratulating Kayleen and welcoming Maria to XBOX!
Asha