Deadline is reporting that SEGA is in the very early stages of developing a live-action film based on the popular Streets of Rage beat 'em up video game franchise.
John Wick and Nobody scribe Derek Kolstad penned the script on spec, which certainly bodes well for the film's prospects considering his immense success in the action genre.
Streets of Rage is a classic beat-em-up that debuted in 1991 for the Sega Genesis and has spawned three sequels, with the most recent, Streets of Rage 4, arriving in 2020. It received strong reviews and has sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide, proving the franchise is still quite popular even thirty years after its original launch.
It's hard to say what the movie could be about, but in the first game players could take control of three characters - Adam, Axel, or Blaze - and fight to save the city from being overtaken by a criminal syndicate led by Mr. Big
It's probably no coincidence that this news broke shortly after Sonic the Hedgehog 2 proved to be yet another box office smash, grossing over $231.8 million worldwide to date. Streets of Rage will also be produced by dj2 Entertainment, with Escape Artists coming on board as co-producer.
While Kolstad didn't pen the upcoming John Wick: Chapter 4 or John Wick: Chapter 5, he remains one of Hollywood's most in-demand writers and is currently hard at work on Starz's John Wick prequel series The Continental, Netflix's Splinter Cell series, Just Watch Me, Acolyte, Just Cause, and Hulu's Hitman series.