Now that The Last of Us has been successfully adapted into a live-action series on HBO, it’s time for Red Dead Redemption to finally hit the big screen in a movie franchise. Historically, live-action video game adaptations have been notoriously bad. The movie versions of Doom, Hitman, and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider were all widely panned by critics and dismissed by fans. One of the biggest problems was that, like a lot of early comic book films, the early video game movies were embarrassed by their source material. The original Mario movie is a Mario movie in name only.
That all turned around in 2023 with the blockbuster success of HBO’s The Last of Us. With the video game’s writer-director Neil Druckmann on board as a co-showrunner, The Last of Us faithfully adapted the game in a way that pleased both long-time players and newcomers. And The Last of Us is just one of many successful video game adaptations in recent memory: Fallout, Uncharted, Five Nights at Freddy’s, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Super Mario Bros. Movie — the list goes on. After all those successes, it’s time for one of the best video game stories to finally get adapted.
Red Dead Redemption's Story Would Be Perfect For A Series Of Movies
Imagine Horizon, But It's Red Dead Redemption
The epic saga of the Red Dead Redemption franchise is tailor-made for a blockbuster western movie franchise. Released in 2010, Red Dead Redemption charts the decline of the American frontier on the verge of civilization and technological advancements in 1911 (the perfect setting for an anti-western deconstructing the genre’s tropes). It revolves around former outlaw John Marston, whose family is taken hostage by the corrupt government in exchange for his services as a hired gun. In order to get his wife and son back, he has to bring three of his ex-gangmates to justice.
As of December 2023, the two Red Dead Redemption games have shipped over 81 million units.
In the 2018 prequel, Red Dead Redemption 2, set 12 years earlier, the player controls John’s fellow gang member Arthur Morgan, who takes on rival gangs, government agents, and old adversaries as he contends with the impending death of the Old West. Together, these two games tell a complete, expansive story about the downfall of the Wild West through the eyes of a pair of aging gunslingers. That story is perfect for a multi-movie adaptation for the big screen. Imagine the breathtaking cinematography of Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga with the brutal violence of the Red Dead Redemption games.
A Red Dead Redemption Movie Would Tackle Genres No Other Video Game Adaptation Has
There's Never Been A Gritty Western Video Game Adaptation
Most video game adaptations fall into the same familiar genre category as previous video game adaptations. Movies have been made out of fighting games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, survival horror games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Alone in the Dark, and Indiana Jones-style action-adventure games like Uncharted and Tomb Raider. Those movies end up having a similar approach and visual style to the other movies based on games of their ilk. But Red Dead Redemption would have a unique opportunity in its genre; there’s never been a gritty western video game adaptation.
And Red Dead Redemption isn’t just a standard western franchise; the games draw from a very specific subset of western movies. They’re based on the gritty revisionist westerns and blood-soaked spaghetti westerns that deconstructed the black-and-white good-versus-evil morality of classical westerns with ethically ambiguous antiheroes. The first game’s story of John turning against loved ones to save other loved ones is similar to Guy Pearce’s arc in the gruesome Australian western The Proposition, while the second game’s story of Arthur’s glory days slipping away is similar to the aging gang’s nostalgic last job in The Wild Bunch.
The first game’s story of John turning against loved ones to save other loved ones is similar to Guy Pearce’s arc in the gruesome Australian western The Proposition, while the second game’s story of Arthur’s glory days slipping away is similar to the aging gang’s nostalgic last job in The Wild Bunch.
A movie adaptation of the Red Dead Redemption franchise would be a perfect opportunity to bring back those anti-western traditions: the bleak, horrific violence of The Proposition; the operatic action of The Wild Bunch; the social commentary of Unforgiven; the subversive characterization of McCabe & Mrs. Miller; the stunning wide-angle landscape photography of the Dollars trilogy. The snowy opening act of Red Dead Redemption 2 paves the way for an homage to The Great Silence. Red Dead Redemption’s “Great Mexican Train Robbery” mission paves the way for an homage to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
Red Dead Redemption Would Have One Big Advantage Over Other Westerns
Most Modern Western Movies Bomb, But Red Dead Is A Juggernaut I.P.
The western genre hasn’t had an easy time at the box office since its heyday ended with the dawn of the New Hollywood movement in the 1960s. There have been some hit western movies in the years since then, from Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained to Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves to the Coen brothers’ remake of True Grit, but they’re the exception to the rule, not the rule. It’s tough enough to get audiences out to theaters these days as it is without expecting them to take a chance on a long-dead genre.
Look no further than Costner’s own Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1, which bombed at the box office earlier this year. It was supposed to be the first part of a four-part epic, but it made so little at the box office — grossing $31,499,251 against a $50 million budget (via The Numbers) — that the second installment has been indefinitely shelved. A Red Dead Redemption movie wouldn’t have that problem, because it would be tied to a massive I.P. It would bring in an audience that might not even like westerns as a genre but are fans of the game anyway.
Why A Red Dead Redemption Movie Still Hasn't Happened
Rockstar Can't Strike An Agreeable Deal With A Hollywood Studio
Both Red Dead Redemption and Rockstar Games’ other big franchise, Grand Theft Auto, are lucrative I.P.s with deep cinematic influences, so it’s strange that Hollywood still hasn’t snapped them up for a film adaptation. A movie adaptation of Red Dead Redemption would be a new version of The Wild Bunch with a huge built-in audience, and a movie adaptation of Grand Theft Auto would be a new version of Heat or The Driver with its own massive built-in audience. So, why hasn’t a movie studio taken advantage of that yet?
Rockstar would want some creative control over a movie adaptation of Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto, and the studios are reluctant to give it.
Dan Houser — the co-founder, head writer, and VP of creativity at Rockstar — addressed this in a recent interview with The Ankler. Houser explained that he’s had “a few awkward dates” with studio executives that haven’t gone particularly well. Every executive Houser has met with has expected him to be “blinded by the lights” and eager to give up his company’s billion-dollar properties for the chance to get a movie made. Rockstar would want some creative control over a movie adaptation of Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto, and the studios are reluctant to give it.
