Cyberpunk 2077’s Movie Adaptation Comes With One Controversial Twist

Begun, the video game movie wars have. Like the superhero movie boom before it, video game adaptations have suddenly become the hottest ticket in town — and you just know studios are going to do everything they can to take full advantage of this while they can. The newly-merged Paramount/Warner Bros. (now under the umbrella of Skydance) is at the top of that list, fast-tracking projects such as the “Sonic the Hedgehog” movies, the recent “Street Fighter,” the upcoming “Call of Duty” blockbuster, and more. The next one on the agenda to get the live-action treatment will be “Cyberpunk 2077,” the infamously bug-ridden (but, once we got past all that, exceptionally entertaining) 2020 open-world title.

All that we initially knew was that the planned “Cyberpunk” movie would be set in the fictional dystopian town of Night City, but now we’re learning new details about what’s in store … and, like practically any other video game-related update these days, it’s bound to cause some controversy. In a new interview with Polish outlet PAP Biznes (via Polygon), CD Projekt Red co-CEO Michał Nowakowski revealed that the video game company has very specific ideas in mind about how they want Paramount and the yet-to-be-revealed creative team to approach this adaptation. According to Nowakowski:

“At this point, we can only say that we definitely don’t want to make a film adaptation of the game. We want to tell a story in the world of ‘Cyberpunk,’ but it won’t be a one-to-one translation of the game’s story.”

With respect to all the chooms who were gearing up for Keanu Reeves to reprise his role as the punk-rocker Johnny Silverhand and dreaming about all their fan-casts over who could play main protagonist V, allow us to throw some cold water real quick. Whatever form this movie based on “Cyperpunk 2077” ultimately takes, we now know for sure that it won’t be a direct copy-and-paste job of the story from the game … and we couldn’t be more relieved to hear it.

It’s the only approach that makes any narrative sense, really. Before anyone starts throwing rotten vegetables at us, that’s not to say we aren’t hopeful to see characters like V (whatever gender the writers decide on), Johnny, Jackie, or fan-favorites Panam Palmer and Judy Álvarez end up playing some sort of a role in the adaptation. But for a game so dependent on player choices and optionality and alternate endings (not unlike “Mass Effect,” which still faces plenty of its own hurdles as a TV adaptation), how could a movie stripping all that away from viewers ever hope to live up to what the game pulled off so cinematically the first time around? As cutting-edge efforts like “GTA VI” continue to blur the lines between video game graphics and photorealism, live-action adaptations are going to have to work that much harder to justify their own existence.

In other words, perhaps taking the same approach as Zach Cregger’s “Resident Evil” is the only way to go. Like Raccoon City, Night City and the surrounding area lend themselves to endless amounts of storytelling possibilities. There’s zero reason to give us more of the same ol’ stuff when we could get something new and original instead.