GEARS OF WAR Movie Adaptation Finds A Writer

After nearly a decade in the works and an announcement last fall, the Gears of War movie has been assigned a writer. Shane Salerno, who currently has been working on the four upcoming Avatar sequels, will be penning the script for the Universal Pictures project.

Last fall, Universal and Microsoft announced the Gears movie was in development. Rod Fergusson, head of the developer of the Microsoft subsidiary studio, The Coalition, said the film was the next logical step for the Xbox franchise. The film will be produced by Scott Stuber and Dylan Clark of Bluegrass Films.

The film will not be based on the Gears video game, but will instead be set in the same universe, a post-apocalyptic planet called Sera where a squad of commandos battle hordes of aliens known as Locusts. At the fall announcement, Fergusson also stated that their goal was to simply copy over the story from the game, but to make the best Gears movie possible rather than one that was the most faithful to the games.

Gears of War was first launched in 2006 and has led to sequels that has grossed more than $1 billion worldwide. Originally, New Line cinema tried unsuccessfully to bring the franchise to theaters in 2007 with Len Wiseman attached to direct. Microsoft acquired the property in 2014 and now has been able to move forward since they partnered with Universal in 2016.

Not only has Salerno been working on the Avatar projects, he also did the screenplays for Armageddon and Oliver Stone’s Savages. He also co-wrote the story for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands.

There is no word yet on a release date.