Streets of Rage movie in the works, scripted by John Wick’s writer Derek Kolstad

Sega’s classic beat-em-up Streets of Rage game is finally being made into a movie, with the script written by John Wick creator Derek Kolstad. It is produced by Sonic the Hedgehog producer dj2 Entertainment and Escape Artists, the studio behind The Equalizer franchise.

The Streets of Rage game was released on the Sega Genesis in 1991, with sequels 2 and 3 in 1992 and 1994. The most recent version of this side-scrolling beat-em-up, Streets of Rage 4, was released in 2020 and was generally well-received.

In these games, you play as one of several ex-cop vigilantes beating up criminals that have corrupted the city’s government. And that’s basically all the reason you need to punch through the game. In some ways, it resembles the plot for John Wick, so we are hopeful that the Streets of Rage movie will be just as good.

Derek Kolstad certainly is busy these days with game-to-movie/series adaptations.

After his incredible work with John Wick and Nobody, Derek Kolstad has been tapped to write for the movie or series adaptations of Splinter Cell, My Friend Pedro, Just Cause, Echo, as well as the Japanese manga series Hellsing.

Meanwhile, dj2 Entertainment has also been hitting it out of the park recently, with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 topping the box office for the best video game movie ever.

It is also busy working on adaptations and projects based on It Takes Two, Disco Elysium, Sleeping Dogs, and with Derek Kolstad, My Friend Pedro and Echo.

We can only hope that with these veterans at the helm, these upcoming adaptations will make us jump for joy rather than recoil in disgust.

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This article was first published in Geek Culture.