Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t even out until April next year, but fans are already wondering if we’ll ever see a big screen adaptation of the sci-fi tabletop RPG-turned video game. As it turns out, we just might.
It can’t have escaped your attention that John Wick star and all-round breathtaking human being Keanu Reeves is going to be starring in Cyberpunk 2077 as the rockerboy Johnny Silverhand. Exactly how he fits into the story is being kept under wraps for now, but it’s been confirmed that he has a pretty substantial role, and isn’t just there to appear on the cover and sell more copies.
While having Keanu Reeves appear in a game I plan to spend the majority of my free time in 2020 with is obviously a huge boon in its own right, another upshot of the actor’s involvement means a Cyberpunk 2077 movie is now ‘much more of a possibility.”
That’s according to Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith, who revealed to VGC that while he can’t currently confirm or deny whether or not the movie rights for the franchise are being considered, “with Keanu Reeves being tied up in things, it’s become much more of a possibility.”
Pondsmith also told VGC that if we ever do get a movie based on his work, it would likely be very different to the tabletop game and the video game, as it would obviously have to adapt to best fit the medium.
He explained:
I can see that there are things that are easy to do in tabletop that I would never try to do in videogames, but there are things in videogames that have much higher impact than I’ll ever have in tabletop. And that will change if we ever do a film for this thing. What I expect to see will be different.
While I’d be first in line to see Keanu Reeves play a grizzled old sci-fi front man in a Cyberpunk 2077 movie, I fully expect that any potential movie’s existence is entirely dependent on how well the game does when it launches in April.
As it stands, people seem to be super into everything they’ve heard about the game so far, from the variety of minigames to the range of available romance options and origin stories for your character. I wouldn’t bet against Cyberpunk 2077 cleaning up next year.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.