Streets Of Rage Is Getting A Movie, According To New Report

Hot off the heels of Sonic the Hedgehog 2’s box office success is news of another Sega classic making its way to the big screen. Deadline reports that a film adaptation of the classic beat ’em up series Streets of Rage is in the works.

According to sources speaking to Deadline, the adaptation will be penned by John Wick creator and writer Derek Kolstad, who reportedly wrote Streets of Rage’s script on spec (basically a script written without a guarantee of production). Kolstad has the upcoming fourth John Wick slated for 2023 and also wrote the 2021 action film Nobody starring Bob Odenkirk.  

Streets of Rage will be co-produced by Dmitri M. Johnson’s dj2 Entertainment, which helped produce Sonic 2 and recently signed on to produce a TV adaptation of It Takes Two. It will be joined by the production company, Escape Artists. Given that the film appears to be very early in its conception, there are no details regarding casting, plot, or a release window. But given that the latest Sonic film had the best opening weekend of any video game movie ever, it’s unsurprising that Sega would want to sprinkle the same cinematic fairy dust on the rest of its back catalog. 

For those unfamiliar, Streets of Rage is a series of co-op brawlers starring street vigilantes who protect their neighborhood by beating the snot out of gangs, thugs, and, occasionally, weird alien wall things. There are four Streets of Rage games the film can draw from; the first three arrived on the Sega Genesis in the early-to-mid ‘90s and Streets of Rage 4 launched on modern consoles in 2020. 

With Uncharted premiering earlier this year, video game movies have seemingly become popular again and it’s getting tricky trying to keep track of them all. In case you missed them, be sure to check out our stories on these other recently announced film adaptations: Ghost of Tsushima, BioShock, Jak & Daxter, a video game movie starring The Rock that might be Call of Duty, and Mario.

[Source: Deadline]