Greg Russo has said that his Saints Row movie will be inspired by 70s classics like Escape From New York and The Warriors.
During a recent interview with Collider, Russo explained his vision for a Saints Row movie adaptation and how he hopes to create a faithful experience:
“The tricky thing with something like Saints Row is gonna be tone, right away. ‘Cause if you know the franchise, you know that it basically had two tones. It has more of the gritty tone, which is the first couple [games], and then it goes kind of bonkers and just absolutely insane. And so, we wanted to make sure that we weren’t isolating either of those. So it’s about just trying to find the tonal balance where you have real characters, real stakes — again, that was part of it with Mortal Kombat, too.”
Russo also delved into his inspiration for the flick while mentioning some notable iconic pieces of cinema:
“You want it to feel real, you want the characters to feel real, as much as possible. But you also wanna lean into what made it fun, and lean into that craziness. So part of it was trying to figure out that tone, which I think it’s finally gotten into a place where it makes sense. And then it was a matter of, ‘What kind of movie is this? Because how do you take an open-world [game] and tell a story?’
“So I looked at different films that I really love. I’m a big fan of ’70s cinema, so I looked at The Warriors, I looked at Escape From New York — just some of those classics. And I said, ‘Well, how do we pull from some of those and tell our own unique story?’ So I’m excited for it. We’ll see.”
The Saints Row series is known for its over the top gameplay and satirical mechanics. Therefore, it’ll be interesting to see what a Saints Row film turns out like. Russo’s Saints Row film has yet to receive a release date, but we’ll hopefully hear more about the project later this year.
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