It took decades, but video game adaptations are finally hot again. Thank HBO and The Last of Us. Thank Sony and Resident Evil. And, apparently, thank Paramount Pictures. The studio is now developing a movie based on the popular yet initially maligned sci-fi RPG Cyberpunk 2077, which marks the studio’s third major video game IP grab of late. It’s also got Street Fighter coming to theaters later this month and Call of Duty in 2028.
Deadline broke the news of the project, which is being produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura (who also works with many of the Hasbro IPs) along with CD Projekt Red, the company that created the game in the first place.
Cyberpunk 2077 debuted in 2020 and puts the player in the open, futuristic world of Night City. There, you play as a mercenary named V who ends up with a biochip implanted in their head that contains the consciousness of a rockstar/terrorist named Johnny Silverhand (played in the game by Keanu Reeves, though it’s unclear if he’s attached to the film). You then have to traverse the world with Johnny constantly interrupting and try to find a way to safely remove the biochip before Johnny’s consciousness overwrites V’s.
I’ve never played it, but it seems like it’s an incredibly expansive and dense sci-fi world ripe for big-screen storytelling. Or, you could tell the story of the game’s development, which is even more intriguing. When it was first released in 2020, the game was so buggy it was pulled from the PlayStation store. There were then fixes and reboots and a successful anime that reinvigorated the franchise, all of which sound like a great movie on its own.
And while there is certainly a fertile world to be explored, and a name brand that lots of fans know, do you think Cyberpunk 2077 is anywhere close to as popular as Call of Duty or Street Fighter? Sure, it’s sold tens of millions of copies, but it still feels kind of niche, right? Am I just old? Either way, for this movie to really come together and live up to its potential, it’s going to have to have an incredible script and visionary director to give us something worthy of this world.
Are you pumped for a Cyberpunk 2077 movie? Let us know.
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