2 Attachment(s)
Steven DeKnight Has Discussed An R-Rated God of War Movie
Steven DeKnight has talked to Sony about a potential R-rated movie version of God Of War. The original God Of War trilogy introduced players to Kratos, the eternally angry soldier and general who ascends to Godhood, before slaughtering his way through various gods and creatures from Greek mythology, including Zeus himself. Kratos made for a great anti-hero because while he was a violent, amoral jerk, he was a lot of fun to play, and the games kept the action coming thick and fast.
This year's God Of War made for a refreshing change of pace, picking up with an older Kratos, who is now father to a young son named Atreus. The game still had great, bloody combat, but it also presented players with a rich story, which drew on Norse mythology. The game was released to rave reviews and sold over 5 million copies within the first month, proving there's still life in single-player games yet.
Director Steven DeKnight (Pacific Rim Uprising) is a fan of the God Of War games, and in a recent Twitter exchange praised the latest title and suggested Dave Bautista would make for a great live-action Kratos. Now in a new interview with ComicBook.com, the filmmaker reveals that following the reaction to his Twitter chat, he actually spoke with Sony about a possible movie, and how he would approach it.
I had some early conversations with the good people at Sony PlayStation about it and my biggest thing is, look, you gotta approach it like a book. Approach it like adapting Jaws. For people who've read Jaws, the movie is very different but they're both fantastic. So you have to be able to take the source material and make it work as a movie. And I think that's part of the reason oftentimes video game movies don't work is because you can't translate the video game experience into a movie. You gotta take the characters and the situations and the emotions and make it work for a movie. Which means a lot of times you've got to change things, which is very dicey obviously because you don't want to alienate video game fans, but you have to make a film that works within the context of a movie by itself. Very difficult.
DeKnight concludes by admitting he's not in any active conversations with Sony about making a God Of War movie. Talk of a movie has come up many times in the past, with screenwriters Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan once attached to pen a script, and God Of War creator David Jaffe says an offer was once made to Daniel Craig, who turned it down. DeKnight's suggestion of Bautista for Kratos sounds just right; he can do the action without question, but he's also proven he can tackle roles with emotion and depth, too.
An R-rated God Of War movie has a lot of potential, and recent video game movies like Rampage have done very well financially. That said, movie adaptations of games still suffer from the so-called "video game movie curse," which is the idea that they're nearly always bad. The latest God Of War has a stronger story than a lot of other games, so with a talented director at the helm, a movie could totally work. It's just a question of whether Sony is brave enough to take a gamble on one.
