Universal Pictures has won the rights to adapt the Ruiner video game for the big screen, and is wasting no time getting the project going.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio has already tapped Wes Ball, the director behind the Maze Runner films as well as the recent movie, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, for the project. Michael Arlen Ross (Oracle) is also on board to write the adaptation of the popular game from Reikon.
Ruiner, which came out in 2017, is a cyberpunk shoot ‘em up game that takes place in 2091 in a dystopian city called Rengkok. The main player is a masked mercenary who, according to the game’s official synopsis, is a “wired psychopath who fights against a corrupt system to uncover the truth and retrieve his kidnapped brother. Under the guidance of a mysterious hacker, he battles through a world of brutal violence and cutting-edge technology, inching closer to the dark secrets hidden within the city’s neon-lit streets.”
The project is still in its early days, and there are no details as to whether Ruiner will supersede Ball’s work on another video game adaptation: The Legend of Zelda. That project is produced by Nintendo and Sony Pictures Entertainment, and it’s not clear if this deal with Ball takes precedence over the Ruiner project at Universal.
Whatever comes first, it looks like Ball will be video game adaptation business for the foreseeable future.
