Hollywood actors keep bringing up a potential Red Dead Redemption movie and saying they would love to be in it. After Jack Black revealed he’d love to star in a Red Dead Redemption movie, despite the fact he doesn’t think Rockstar would ever greenlight it, Karl Urban has thrown his hat into the ring.
Urban, star of The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, The Boys, Dredd and so much more, even suggested the character he’d love to play: John Marston.
In an interview with Square Mile, Urban was asked if there were any other video game adaptations he’d love to star in, having played Johnny Cage in the upcoming Mortal Kombat 2.
“Red Dead Redemption is one of my favourites,” he replied. “Red Dead is a fantastic game. It’s interesting because I didn’t really have too much of an opportunity to get that heavily invested in the gaming culture. Although I absolutely enjoy the opportunity to indulge in that kind of escapism, when gaming consoles came out in 1994, I was an unemployed actor living in Sydney. I couldn’t afford those consoles.
“By the time I could, I was so busy working on various projects around the world that I was never able to get into it. From time to time, when I did get the rare opportunity, Red Dead was certainly one of the games that spoke to me.”
Then, Urban delivered the kicker: “I mean, come on, John Marston! I’d love to play that character.”
John Marston, for the uninitiated, is the protagonist of 2010’s Red Dead Redemption, and a secondary protagonist of its sequel, 2018’s Red Dead Redemption 2. He’s a former outlaw trying to escape his violent past and protect his family while being forced by federal agents to hunt down his former Van der Linde gang members.
While Urban does seem perfect for the role, it seems unlikely he’ll ever get the chance to realize this particular dream. Rockstar and parent company Take-Two have shown no indication of allowing Hollywood anywhere near their prized properties, and that includes Grand Theft Auto. In 2024, Rockstar Games co-founder and former head writer Dan Houser said a Grand Theft Auto movie “never made sense,” insisting it would have been a “huge risk” considering the reputation of the GTA brand.
“Why would we do this?,” Houser and the other Rockstar leads asked the film executives. “What you’ve described is you making a movie and us having no control and taking a huge risk, that we’re going to end up paying for with something that belongs to us.”
“They thought we’d be blinded by the lights and that just wasn’t the case. We had what we considered to be multi billion dollar IP, and the economics never made sense. The risk never made sense. In those days, the perception was that games made poor-quality movies.”
Photo by Elisabetta A. Villa/Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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