We’d actually managed to forget that Netflix was working on a movie adaptation of video game “guns that are also chainsaws” franchise Gears Of War, mostly out of mental self-defense. The Gears games, while fun enough to blow through with a buddy, are already profoundly generic products of the time in which they were produced; running their boilerplate war movie (but the other army is sort of bug dudes?) stories through the Netflix grey goo generator felt like a recipe for something truly anonymous, even by the standards of video game adaptations.
Now, though, we’ve gotten our first indication that something interesting might come up out of the sludge, as THR reports that David Leitch—most recently of his “more fun than the box office treated it” Ryan Gosling vehicle The Fall Guy—is in talks to helm the movie. A former stunt guy, Leitch could at least make the prospect of watching the world’s beefiest men duck behind waist-high walls before somebody throws a grenade in a hole seem at least a little bit lively. (Nothing on heaven or earth is going to make us care about Beef Boy Prime protagonist Marcus Fenix, though.) Jon Spaihts, who helped Denis Villeneuve adapt Frank Herbert’s novel for Dune, is reportedly working on the script, causing us to wonder whether you can pick up whiplash just by going from an overwhelming bounty of narrative ideas to basically zilch-o.
Netflix announced that it was adapting Gears back in 2022, including plans to follow the film with an animated series. The streamer hasn’t commented yet on reports that Leitch is coming aboard the project, where he’ll also supposedly produce. The director’s currently working on the early days of Nicholas Hoult and Anna Sawai vehicle How To Rob A Bank for Amazon MGM.
