A Saints Row movie is coming from the director of ę¾³ę“²å¹øčæ5å¼å„å·ē åå²ę„čÆ¢:Fate of the Furious and Straight Outtš°a Compton, F. Gary Gray. Details are short on what direction the cinematic adaptation will take according to the report that reveaš·led the project, aside from the fact that Greg Russo is writing it (he's also penning the new Mortal Kombat movie), but boy does it have a hell of a lot of options. I hope the filmmakers take a look at the entire history of Saints Row before they decide what to make of this strange franchise.
The first Saints Row was an unrepentant GTA knockoff that gave open-world action fans explosive thrills in the otherwise subdued Niko Bellic era. Saints Row 2 expanded on that premise with a bigger open world and a more fleshed out story of ambition and violence. ę¾³ę“²å¹øčæ5å¼å„å·ē åå²ę„čÆ¢:Saints Row The Third shedded the gangland grit in favor of Dubstep Guns and gimp-drawn carriages, and somehow it worked beautifully. ę¾³ę“²å¹øčæ5å¼å„å·ē åå²ę„čÆ¢:Saints Row 4 made you the goddamn President of the United States and šgave you superpowers to wreak havoc in a Matrix-like simulation ršun by alien invaders.
You could even call ę¾³ę“²å¹øčæ5å¼å„å·ē åå²ę„čÆ¢:Agents of Mayhem a Saints Row game, since it was a sequel to one of the endings for ę¾³ę“²å¹øčæ5å¼å„å·ē åå²ę„čÆ¢:Saints Row: Gat out of Hell. Oh right, I fošÆrgot to mention Gat ź¦æout of Hell - that was the one where you went to Hell and fought the devil for the immortal soul of the president.
In short, I will be deeply bummed if Gray and co. skirt all of this oddball source material and make an action movie that just happens to star a bunch of folks who call themselves the Third Street Saints. The least it could do is bring back Daniel Dae Kim (who you may also know as Ben Daimio from the ę¾³ę“²å¹øčæ5å¼å„å·ē åå²ę„čÆ¢:Hellboy reboot) as the live-action version of Johnny Gat, his nigh-immortal Saints character. To be fair, I'll also be bušmmed if the Saints Row movie goes dark after this until we hear it was canceled three years later, as is the case for many such film projects.
See what other adaptations are coming soon on our list of ę¾³ę“²å¹øčæ5å¼å„å·ē åå²ę„čÆ¢:upcoming video game movies. Or see what's new in games and entertainment this week with our latest Release Radar video.
I got a Bš A in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintš„endo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.
