Ruben Fleischer, whose re-edited Gangster Squad is finally getting a UK release in January, has told Coming Soon that one of his next projects could be an adaptation of video game franchise Spy Hunter – which he hopes will be ‘his James Bond’.
“If I could make any movie, it would be James Bond,” he told the website. “I’ve always loved the genre but I don’t think they’ll hire an American director to direct a James Bond movie… so for me, Spy Hunter is an opportunity to create a new spy franchise.”
An interesting idea, but what does Fleischer make of directing a video game adaptation? “It sounds silly, but [Spy Hunter] was my favourite video game when I was a kid and it had a great title and a great theme song, but there’s no real other associations that people have with it other than a cool car, so I feel like there’s a lot of room for us to invent a new character and a new series.”
The Zombieland director is still unsure if he’ll helm the project which has also seen directors John Woo (Face/Off), Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil) and screenwriters Michael Brandt (Wanted), Zak Penn (The Avengers) and Stuart Beattie (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra) unsuccessfully attempt to adapt it to the big screen.
Spy Hunter was a 1983 arcade game from Midway which was then ported to home consoles like the NES, Atari 2600, Amstrad CPC, ZS Spectrum, Commodore 64, ColecoVision and the BBC Micro and spawned clones like Action Fighter for the Sega Master System. It was re-booted with 3D graphics for the Playstation 2, Xbox and Gamecube in 2001 and recently had a newer version released for the Playstation Vita.
Originally published December 17, 2012. Updated April 10, 2018.
