3 days ago, Netflix announced the production of a Gears of War live-action and adult animated series on the streaming platform. Soon after, Dave Bautista was nominated by the Gears of War video game series creator, Cliff Bleszinski, to be cast as Marcus Fenix. Although the nomination itself comes as no surprise, it is somewhat unfortunate that Bleszinski has been kept out of the loop — in creative as well as executive authority — by Netflix while adapting his game series.
Meanwhile, the fan casting of Dave Bautista has been taking off with immense enthusiasm among the fans as the actor himself has made it abundantly clear where he stands with a Gears of War adaptation.
Dave Bautista Responds to the Gears of War Adaptation
Released in November 2006, Gears of War is a media franchise based on the eponymous video game series created by Epic Games and owned by Xbox Game Studios. For years, since its rising popularity, Hollywood star Dave Bautista has been drumming up his wish to star in a cinematic adaptation of the series and had claimed it was his “destiny” to do so. As such, when Netflix announced the development of a Gears of War live-action movie, Bautista hadn’t wasted a second putting one foot in the door with a short teaser featuring himself as one of the GoW characters.
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This recent development aligns with Hollywood’s obsession with adapting video game franchises into live-action films. Some of the most popular ones in recent years that have been subjected to the big screen are Far Cry (2008), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), Assassin’s Creed (2016), Warcraft (2016), Resident Evil series, Hitman, Tomb Raider, Werewolves Within (2021), Mortal Kombat (2021), and Uncharted (2022). Other adaptations like The Angry Birds Movie, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros., and Detective Pikachu are less gritty and more inclined toward a PG-13 rating than the aforementioned.
Also read: Hollywood Struggles to Adapt Video Games But Not Comics
Gears of War Netflix Adaptation: What Can You Expect?
Although not much has been revealed about either the live-action film or the adult animated series adaptation, Netflix’s announcement about Gears of War has the fans racing to put on their best Sorting Hat to finalize their casting of the lead roster. Cliff Bleszinski stands front and center of that narrative and he has specified Dave Bautista by name as fit for Marcus Fenix and wants a Latino actor to be cast as Dominic Santiago. According to Bleszinski, Chris Pratt shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the franchise while Ryan Reynolds would make a great Baird.
Given how vocal Bautista has been about his intent to star in the Gears of War live-action movie, it would certainly be interesting to cast an actor already invested in the existing franchise. The practice of allowing actors familiar with their characters has played out for the benefit of production as was proved by Henry Cavill in Netflix’s The Witcher series. Incidentally, if Gears of War doesn’t work out, the Guardian of the Galaxy star always has Kratos to fall back on, yet another character that the actor wishes to portray in case a production decides to adapt PlayStation’s God of War series into a live-action movie.
Source: Dave Bautista
