One of the original Xbox titles, Gears of War, might be coming to Netflix. This follows months of intense negotiations between the developers and the streaming platform. However, it’s just been confirmed that Netflix has been granted the rights to a Gears of War feature-length live-action adaptation as well as an adult animated series.
Netflix will be working alongside The Coalition in this project. The COalition is the Canadian Game developer behind the franchise. So we’re hoping that having them on board will do the franchise justice in this adaptation. This news must be especially good for Scott Stuber, who was part of the team working on the project in 2010 at universal, and now he’s the Film Head at Netflix.
This isn’t the first time Hollywood has tried to break into Gears of War, and over the past few years, many attempts at adapting the franchise have been made. In 2007 shortly after the first game release, New Line briefly had the movie rights. Again in mid-2010, Universal Studios had the rights, but the project never got off the ground.
The game is set on a planet on the brink of societal collapse caused by unnatural creatures believed to be aliens living underground. We follow a small military group as they battle it out against these creatures and try to reclaim some semblance of their world.
At this stage, there are no confirmed cast members or release dates. That doesn’t mean that fans of the franchise haven’t already voiced their opinion on who should be included. Dave Bautista is one of the fan favorites to play the lead character Marcus Fenix. The wrestler himself has even put forward his interest in portraying the role. Another fan favorite would be Terry Crews for the role of Augustus Cole, aka Cole Train.
If this project comes to fruition (which we hope it does), it will join a band of other video game adaptations being currently undertaken, such as Fallout, The Last of Us and even the Return to Silent Hill.
Earlier this year, we saw Netflix’s Resident Evil adaptation of a series loosely based on the video game. Despite the hopes from fans of the Resident Evil games and movies, the series didn’t do well and was canceled just a month after release. The German producer, Oliver Berben, attributed the series’ failure mostly to the fact that they deviated too far from the original title, specifically in the target audience. Instead of targeting the already large fan base, they tried to diversify and attract a younger female audience.
Fallout will be coming to Prime Video as a series. So far, we don’t have a release date, but we know actors Walter Goggins, Ella Purnell, Kyle Machlaglan, Xelia Mendes-Jones and Aaron Moten are confirmed to make appearances in the show. The Last Of Us will also be adapted into a series, and we’ll see Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal as the main characters. HBO is developing the series, and it’s scheduled to be released on Sunday, January 15th, 2023. Return to Silent Hill is another movie adaptation of the popular horror game and is set to release sometime in 2023. Christopher Gans will direct the movie, but the cast hasn’t been confirmed yet.
Many of us have been waiting to see our favorite games brought to life. The adaptations being worked on have so much good content that would make them great TV or movie adaptations if done right. The Witcher series proved that it can be done, if the proper respect is given to the original story.
