The Just Cause Games are Becoming an Inevitably Gonzo Action Movie

Do you like action movies? Do you like the ones where a bunch of crazy nonsense is happening that seems like it defies all the laws of physics? Do you like video games? Good news, all three of those itches are going to be scratched with an adaptation of the Just Cause games.

Per the Hollywood Reporter, Universal’s picked up the rights to the open-world franchise and enlisted Blue Beetle’s Ángel Manuel Soto to direct. Action movie studio 87North will produce the film via Kelly McCormick and action guy David Leitch, coming off the heels of The Fall Guy from earlier in May. Also producing is Story Kitchen, a company that’s already involved in the recent live-action adaptations of Tomb Raider and Sonic the Hedgehog.

The Just Cause games center on Rico Rodriguez, a secret agent tasked with traveling to various islands and saving the people by overthrowing the current regime of whover’s in charge. Since 2006, the series has been well-liked, largely due to the sequels enabling players to create as much carnage as they can by destroying government property with whatever they’ve got on hand. The stories are cliche and not all that interesting, but the games make up for it by allowing players to wreak havoc and pull off some wild death-defying stunts with Rico’s handy grappling hook and wingsuit. If you can imagine a Mission Impossible game that doesn’t take itself all that seriously, that’s basically these games.

Interestingly, a movie adaptation was reportedly getting off the ground back in 2010 (the same year Just Cause 2 released), but nothing came of it. In 2017, Jason Momoa was tapped to play Rico in an adaptation from Atlas director Brad Peyton, which also never happened since at the point, the two were both individually pretty busy. After another false start in 2020, it looks like the stars have aligned for a movie to finally happen. Now if only there were a game along with it: the last entry was Just Cause 4 back in 2018, and Avalanche is currently working on the open-world co-op game Contraband for Xbox, which we haven’t really heard much about since its initial reveal in 2021.

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