SAINTS ROW Movie Writer Greg Russo Pulls Ideas From THE WARRIORS and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK

For those who may not so familiar with the Saints Row franchise, it can go from a gritty, intense action-adventure gameplay to completely off-the-wall insanity. The first few games were more grounded and told stories of gangs, crime, and making it to the top of the city. The later games were filled with crazy set-pieces, aliens, and superpowers.

There’s a new movie for Saints Row currently in development, and while we don’t know quite what to expect yet, we do have a tease for the style and possible direction for the upcoming film. Writer Greg Russo, who also worked on the soon to release Mortal Kombat movie, did an interview with Collider and opened up about the difficulties with making a film about a franchise with such a variety of tone and style:

“I think from a storytelling perspective, it was two things. 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. 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.”

He then went on about adapting an open world of exploration, options, and life and turns that into a digestible movie:

“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."

Although Greg Russo may not have a laundry list of films or shows yet, with the way Mortal Kombat is looking, Saints Row seems to be in good hands. Can you imagine The Warriors with aliens, superpowers, and crazed humor? It would be different, but very entertaining to say the least. There isn’t any set release window for the film just yet, but let us know if you prefer the more grounded story closer to the earlier Saints Row games, or are you all for lasers, leaping over buildings, and explosions galore?