After announcing the project over a decade ago, the Just Cause movie has finally found its production team.
Since 2006, Avalanche Software has been producing intermittent installments of the Just Cause video games, featuring its own unique spin on open world game design. As secret agent Rico Rodriguez, you would seek out to conquer an island or archipelago, and depose that state’s tyrranical leaders.
Just Cause came out in a very strange time, cementing its place in the history of open world games. The 2006 original was renowned for its scale, offering a large open world for the time, and 300 side missions to complete. Of course, back then, it simply seemed like a knockoff of Grand Theft Auto with a reinvented scenario on top of it.
While we’re now used to open world games having refined game design ideas, the first Just Cause reflects very much how it was a product of its time. The story was never really much for this franchise – the real appeal of the game was the power trip of being able to take down enemies with the level of complexity you usually leveraged in a Deus Ex.
Just Cause 2 in 2010 ramped up the craziness and intensity of the power trip, introducing not only the wildly popular grappling hook, but destructible buildings, and a Chaos meter that encouraged you to destroy everything. By the time Just Cause 3 and Just Cause 4 rolled around, however, critics were no longer as glowing in their reviews, as the likes of Assassin’s Creed was taking the open world genre forward beyond what Avalanche has been doing.
Still, even lapsed fans would easily recognize the appeal of a Just Cause movie adaptation, and it’s kind of wild that it’s taken this long. As reported by THR, Constantin Film struggled to get their project together for a decade before the rights lapsed. Universal Pictures has now picked up the rights, fresh off the success of their film adaptations of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Five Nights at Freddy’s. Universal has assembled an impressive production team.
The main producers are Kelly McCormick and David Leitch, under their 87North company. 87North produced the surprising Bob Odenkirk action vehicle Nobody, and most recently, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt action comedy The Fall Guy, which is itself an adaptation of a 1980s TV show.
Also part of the production is Story Kitchen, who worked on the Tomb Raider and Sonic the Hedgehog movies. Lastly, in the director’s chair is Puerto Rican filmmaker Ángel Manuel Soto, who mostly made documentaries and short films before catapulting to Hollywood on the Blue Beetle movie.
The project certainly sounds like it has potential, but it’s not clear for now how this will turn out. The big make it or break it question is who’s going to play Rico, but truthfully, if they don’t take it too seriously, they can at least guarantee making a fun movie over a good video game adaptation. This could be one to look forward to if everything comes together for the production.
