Another day, another announcement for a video game adaptation — this one a little further left of field than we might have expected.
According to Variety, studio Lionsgate has secured the movie rights to Streets of Rage, the classic beat-em-up video game franchise popular on Sega consoles in the early 90’s. The studio has tapped Derek Kolstad to write and produce and produce the film, which seems like a good fit. Kolstad is an action movie screenwriter who has been kicking around since 2012’s One in the Chamber, but it was 2014’s John Wick that really put him on the map. Kolstad went on to write on two of the John Wick sequels, and even wrote two episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier for Marvel Studios.
He’s no stranger to stories about punching and shooting, is what I’m saying.
The story of Streets of Rage is fairly straightforward 16-bit era video game fare: a group of former cops decide that vigilante justice is valid after all and punch an entire crime syndicate to death across a series of wildly varied urban levels. Sega’s Toru Nakahara, whose credits include the recent Sonic the Hedgehog films, will produce with Kolstad.
Sega released three Streets of Rage games on its Mega Drive console between 1991 and 1994. A fourth game, Streets of Rage 4, developed by Dotemu, Lizardcube, and Guard Crush Games launched in 2020 to generally favourable reviews.
The Streets of Rage movie will become the second video game adaptation in production at Lionsgate, with its Borderlands movie starring Cate Blanchett now in post-production. It will also be Sega’s second major film based on one of its properties, with its two Sonic the Hedgehog movies proving wildly popular with audiences.
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