Draft:Gears of War (film)

Gears of War is an upcoming American science fiction action film written by Jon Spaihts. It is based on the video game franchise developed by Epic Games. It will be released on Netflix.

Production
In March 2007, New Line Cinema had purchased the rights to make a Gears of War film, with Stuart Beattie writing the script along with Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, who would be producing it. Producer Wyck Godfrey said of the film adaptation: "I'm not a gamer, but what blew me away about Gears was how it captures the mythology of a war mission and how high the stakes are." Len Wiseman was reported to direct the movie adaptation of Gears of War in August, but Godfrey stated that they have "a director we're about to attach" in order to film the movie during 2009 and release in 2010. Cliff Bleszinski, the lead designer of the Gears of War video games, would serve as executive producer and consultant.

Wiseman signed on in June 2008, with Chris Morgan performing script rewrites. Morgan hinted on G4's televised coverage of Comic Con 2008 that the film would be a prequel to the first game, "it could explain how Marcus Fenix got his scar". According to Morgan, Wiseman "wants to make it as realistic as possible, and to blur those lines where your mind says, 'Oh, it's a big CGI film.. Wyck Godfrey said in December 2009 that the intention of the Gears of War film was "to tell the epic story of an alien planet that's living in a horrific environment just feels like the wrong mood right now". In April 2010, New Line considerably scaled back the $100 million budget and story, stalling progress while they waited for a rewrite. Len Wiseman was no longer involved as he shifted his focus to other projects.

In April 2013, Variety reported that "Creative Artists Agency is eager to meet with producers in the coming weeks and set up the project elsewhere" and that Stuart Beattie would write the film. Scott Stuber is named to produce the film.

At the launch ceremony for Gears of War 4 in October 2016, The Coalition's Rod Fergusson affirmed that a Gears of War movie entered development for a theatrical release at Universal Pictures. Scott Stuber and Dylan Clark would produce the film under Universal's Bluegrass Films division, but no director or writer has been selected at this point. Fergusson also stated that where the film takes place relative to the games has been determined. Universal hired Shane Salerno to write the screenplay with Fergusson in May 2017, saying that "the movie won't be based on one of the games but a new story set in the universe." F. Scott Frazier was reported to write the film's script the following year. The film adaptation will not be set in the same universe as the video games.

In November 2022, it was announced that Stuber, now head of film production at Netflix, acquired the film and series rights from Universal. In March 2023, Jon Spaihts was hired to write the screenplay for the film. By November 2023, a long treatment had been completed for the film.