DreamWorks get Masi Oka's 'Defenders'

DreamWorks have acquired the rights to Masi Oka's family adventure The Defenders.

Oka, who plays Hiro Nakamura in Heroes, was inspired to create the project after playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games.

"You can be whoever you want to be," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "The question came to me: What if you had to live up to the person you created in the virtual world?"

The film's plot follows teenagers around the world, who are involved in multiplayer video gaming. The gang, who don't know each other's real personas, are suddenly forced into a real-life adventure and inadvertently become heroes.

DreamWorks are also developing a video game to be released simultaneously.

D.J. Caruso has been lined up to direct, while Gary Whitta is working on a script.