Exclusive: Brie Larson In Talks For Gears Of War Movie
Brie Larson may be joining Netflix's Gears of War film adaptation.
Marvel star Brie Larson is currently in negotiations to join Netflix’s upcoming feature film adaptation of the mega-popular Gears of War video game series. According to our trusted and proven sources, the Captain Marvel actress might be joining the latest attempt to turn the Epic Games science fiction series into a film, following years of development at various studios. Although Brie Larson is best known for her (on-screen) cosmic superhero, a Gears of War project shows she is interested in moving into grittier action fare.
If Brie Larson does join a Gears of War movie, it will be in Netflix’s current version, which is separate both from the continuity of the games and earlier attempts by both New Line Cinema and Universal Pictures to adapt it. There is little word on what the plot of the movie might entail, though, with five games (plus spin-offs), a series of novels, and several different comic books, there is plenty of material to work with.
We seem to be entering a golden age of well-regarded video game adaptations, as HBO’s The Last of Us series (starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey) picks up both increasing viewership and critical acclaim with every episode and Paramount+’s Halo series is also kind of doing its own thing. If it can lock down an Academy Award winner like Brie Larson, a Gears of War film could potentially court the same kind of cultural breakthrough as The Last of Us.
However, Netflix’s Gears of War film will have to contend with translating its third-person shooter gameplay to a narrative film starring one of the most famous faces in the world, which it probably doesn’t want to hide behind the camera. Previous adaptations of third-person shooter games like Dwayne Johnson’s 2005 Doom and Mark Wahlberg’s 2008 Max Payne also struggled with this issue, though it is probably fair to say that those movies had some other issues to work out in terms of storytelling.
At the moment, there are no announced stars committed to the film, and Brie Larson is not locked down for Gears of War. Larson’s fellow Marvel Cinematic Universe star Dave Bautista is already making some noise about wanting to join the video game adaptation, in addition to joining James Gunn’s new DC Universe in some probably villainous capacity. Notably, original Gears of War designer Cliff Blezinski has been very vocal that he does not want MCU star Chris Pratt to join the film, though that will probably not be up to him in the end.
While Brie Larson has not appeared in a starring role in a feature film since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, it seems she is preparing to come back in a big way, which makes Gears of War a strong possibility. In the next year alone, Larson will return to the MCU for The Marvels, join the Fast and Furious universe for Fast X (and might be getting her own spin-off film), and will star in an Apple TV+ series about a scientist turned celebrity cooking show host. Gears of War could certainly be next.
