Home Movies

Gears Of War Movie Picks Up Steam After Recruiting Avatar Scribe

Deadline brings word that Shane Salerno, one of the key screenwriters aboard Cameron's Avatar sequels, has signed on to script the Gears of War movie.

Recommended Videos

Video games are fun. Movies are fun. But when the two combine to produce a live-action feature film – or, by the same token, a tie-in video game in the vein of The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay – the results often range from disastrous to flat-out disappointment.

2016 was no exception, either, after the back-to-back flops of Assassin’s Creed and Duncan Jones’ budding franchise-starter, Warcraft: The Beginning. There have been rumblings of potential sequels for both blockbusters, but without any tangible development in almost six months, the thought of revisiting the Animus – and indeed the mystical realm of Azeroth – is about to be chalked up as wishful thinking.

But if Hollywood executives have been deterred by those box office bombs, it doesn’t show; The Division and the Alicia Vikander-fronted Tomb Raider are just two examples of high-profile video game movies incubating in development, and Deadline brings word of another: Gears of War. Not since October of 2016 have we caught wind of the live-action tentpole, at which point we learned that Universal Pictures had struck up a creative partnership with The Coalition, the video game dev that took the reins of the iconic sci-fi series just in time for Gears of War 4 (Epic Games originally owned the franchise before Microsoft acquired the IP outright in 2014). Now, the Redmond-based giant is making serious headway on its adaptation.

Per Deadline, it’s been confirmed that screenwriter Shane Salerno has signed on to hash out a screenplay for Gears of War. His credits include Armageddon, Shaft and Savages, and he’s currently one of the scribes attached to James Cameron’s Avatar sequels. Salerno will no doubt bring a fair amount of blockbuster experience to the table, then, and it’ll be interesting to discover how Microsoft molds this project into shape as the battle against the invading Locusts looms.

A Gears of War movie is officially picking up steam at Universal Pictures, but what are your thoughts on Salerno’s appointment? Do let us know below.