Cliff Bleszinski, the creator of the Gears of War video game, thinks Zack Snyder and Dave Bautista would be a great fit for the upcoming movie.
Speaking with ComicBook.com, Bleszinski was asked if he’d approve of Snyder directing the upcoming live-action movie based on the video game that’s being made for Netflix. “To be frank, I think Zack Snyder is an amazing director when he is working with existing IP,” Bleszinski said.
“I think when he did, I think it was the Dawn of the Dead remake, some of his superhero movies, when he did 300,” he continued. “As an adaptation, 300 defined a whole genre of [filmmaking], the slow-mo and the fast pans. Army of the Dead, I turned off halfway through, I thought it was terrible. That’s right, I said it. But his fans are rabid as hell and the thing is, I think he’d be a great fit for it.”
Bleszinski fully supports casting Dave Bautista as Marcus Fenix
In September 2023, ComingSoon‘s Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese asked Bleszinski if he thought Bautista would be a good fit to play Marcus Fenix. Bautista has long been vocal about wanting to play Marcus in a Gears of War film and, in November 2022, the actor uploaded a video of himself onto Instagram dressed as the character with the caption, “I can’t make this any easier.”
“Yeah,” Bleszinski answered. “Marcus is like Bruce Willis in Die Hard — everything he touches seems to turn to crap. I used to say back in the day, I didn’t want like a pro wrestler to play Marcus. But Bautista has emerged from the pro wrestling circuit and has shown his range in Blade Runner 2049 and Knock At the Cabin and Guardians of the Galaxy and whatnot. He literally did that cosplay — he’s wearing the armor that he posted on social media, and he has my full support as … people consider me to be ‘the father of Gears.’ I would love for nothing more than to consider consulting on the movie.”
Netflix announced in November 2022 that it was partnering with The Coalition to not only make a live-action Gears of War feature film, but an adult animated series and potentially more projects beyond that as well. In March 2023, Dune’s Jon Spaihts was hired to write the movie.
A director has not yet been officially attached to the Gears of War film; however, Snyder told IGN in August 2023 that “Gears [of War] has always come up in our sort of circle.”
