Director Chad Stahelski has been chatting about his plans to adapt the record-breaking samurai PlayStation game, Ghost Of Tsushima.
Sony’s PlayStation Productions studio is really motoring at the moment. Not only is the long-gestating adaptation of the action-adventure franchise Uncharted nearing release, but production is also underway on a prestige TV series based on the critically-acclaimed game series The Last Of Us.
However, another exciting project that the studio is developing, alongside Sony Pictures (naturally), is a film adaptation of the smash-hit, feudal-era samurai epic, Ghost Of Tsushima for the silver screen. What’s more, the film is slated to be directed by Chad Stahelski, the director of the John Wick films.
If you haven’t come across the game before, it’s perfect material for a series of films. The story has the potential to be utterly compelling as it follows a lone samurai, Jin Sakai, the last surviving member of his clan after the island of Tsuhima is wiped out by invading Mongol hordes.
Sakai is forced to resort to ‘less conventional’ fighting methods and forsake his honour to fight back as an assassin, to stand any chance of reclaiming his homeland. The filmic nature of the game could translate perfectly to cinema too, with the gorgeous locations and stunning fight sequences tailor-made for the big screen. The game itself actually features a Kurosawa mode, where you can play in a grainy black and white aesthetic in a style redolent of the Japanese director’s samurai epics.
Stahelski seems to be adopting a different philosophy to the director of Uncharted, Ruben Fleischer, who spoke only yesterday about the film adaptation being a very different beast to the game. To Stahelski’s mind, that’s certainly not how he sees a Ghost adaptation coming together.
He’s confirmed that the game’s team is very much involved, and has said that “we just want to do it right. You know how video game adaptions can go. So we’re taking our time and doing it right. We’re working very closely with the game developers to make sure we stick to what’s great about it.”
Stahelski is currently working on John Wick 4, which is in post-production. The filmmaker also has a remake of Highlander on the slate too, so we’ll have to wait and see where Ghost of Tsushima fits into hi plans. He did also reveal that the project is currently in the writing stage, stating “fans would be very happy with what we’re working on.”
Consider us very excited for this one. We’ll bring you more news on the Ghost Of Tsushima project as we hear it.
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