At some point it might be easier to write a news post for every property that Amazon isn’t making a TV series out of. God of War (opens in new tab) is joining the company’s massed ranks of upcoming TV projects with a show based on the latest, sad-dad iterations of the games.
Variety (opens in new tab) reports that the God of War series will be helmed by Rafe Judkins, who you might know from his work as a writer and producer on Amazon’s Wheel of Time. The show’s description is pretty much a straight retelling of the plot of the 2018 game (which came out in January this year (opens in new tab) for PC players): “When his beloved wife dies, Kratos sets off on a dangerous journey with his estranged son Atreus to spread her ashes from the highest peak—his wife’s final wish”.
It feels like a bit of an ouroboros to order a TV series of a game that took so many of its weighty, serious cues from prestige TV already, but it looks like Amazon thinks its whizzbang team can breathe new life into the story. Alongside Judkins, the show will enlist Hawk Ostby and Mark Fergus—who worked on Children of Men, The Expanse, and Iron Man—as writers, so there’s reason for cautious optimism. I mean, they also helped write Cowboys & Aliens (opens in new tab), but we all have our off days.
A bunch of videogame people are joining the project as well, including numerous faces from PlayStation Productions and Sony Santa Monica, God of War’s developer. Most notably, Cory Barlog—God of War’s game director—will be attached to the upcoming show as executive producer.
Sony, Amazon, and PlayStation Productions bosses all put out basically-identical statements that say pretty much what you’d expect them to say—they’re all various flavours of excited and honoured to take part—so I won’t transcribe them here. Still, God of War is one of PlayStation’s most precious properties at the minute, and I imagine the preponderance of Sony people on the production staff is an indication that the company is real keen to keep a firm grip on the direction and quality of Amazon’s final product.
Amazon has so many videogame-related TV and movie things going on right now that I’m starting to lose track. Aside from God of War, the company is working on projects based on Fallout (opens in new tab), Mass Effect (opens in new tab), Blade Runner (opens in new tab), Disco Elysium and Life Is Strange (opens in new tab). Oh, and ToeJam & Earl (opens in new tab), which is being worked on in partnership with the NBA’s Steph Curry. Folks, if you’ve got a screenplay you’ve been working on, you might want to send it Amazon’s way. Those guys seem to be down for whatever right now.
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