Streets of Rage is coming to the silver screen.
Lionsgate has acquired the motion picture rights for the Sega game, opening the door for a film adaptation of the popular franchise. Derek Kolstad, who has previously written John Wick and all of its sequels, will write and produce the adaptation.
Streets of Rage centers around a group of ex-cops who weaponize their fists in deadly fashion to take on a dangerous crime syndicate. Alongside Kolstad, Sega’s Toru Nakahara and dj2 Entertainment’s Dmitri M. Johnson, Timothy I. Stevenson and Dan Jevons will produce the film. Nakahara, who produced the first two Sonic the Hedgehog movies to massive box office success, is overseeing the project for Sega alongside Shuji Utsumi.
Streets of Rage was one of the most popular videogame franchises of the ’90s, and Sega published three games between 1991 and 1994. In 2020, the long-awaited fourth game in the series was released to greaat reviews, earning a 7/10 by IGN.
For Kolstad, working on a project such as this is a childhood dream. “When Dmitri first mentioned the idea of cracking a Streets of Rage movie, I was so immediately freaking in,” he said in a statement. “And to play with Sega? The 10-year-old me is still grinning.”
Johnson echoes Kolstad’s intense love for the franchise. “I’ve wanted to make a Streets of Rage film since I was 12 years old,” he added. “This has shaped up to become a ‘dream project’ alongside a ‘dream team.’”
The Streets of Rage adaptation is also produced by Escape Artists’ Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Tony Shaw. Lionsgate is also helming an upcoming film adaptation of Borderlands from horror director Eli Roth.
Carson Burton is a freelance news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter at @carsonsburton.
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