Of Course Jason Momoa Stars in the Helldivers Movie, Out November 2027

honestly this is a terrible pick, the man's only good role was Khal Drogo in GoT...

Throw Tom Holland in there too and then they’ll have confirmed that AI now acts as casting director on all big budget movies.

I like Justin Lin Star Trek: Beyond and choosing him to direct Helldivers seems like a good decision.

Not sure what's Jason Mamoa role though but i guess his name will be needed to attract a lot of audiences as well his fans who never played the game.

I expect him to die like 15 minutes in

@Oram77 true i think because he didn't have to speak much just grunt, I think he will be ok as lobo tho.

If they go down the PG-13 route then this is over before it's even started.

Popular media eating it's own tail. Basically a film, based on a game, that was thematically based on a film, that was based on a book.

This seems like it's going to flop. Is Hollywood at such a nadir of creativity, that they have to keep throwing ill-fitting scripts at videogames, or are they just trying to cash in some of the industry's money? I am nothing but sceptical and cynical!

Please no jack black.

Just googled Justin Lin's filmography. Mostly Fast and Furious films. Zero chance of this being good.

@graymamba Add in Chris Pratt as the voice of one the bad guys, and yeah it's a shoe in that AI is now casting Hollywood films.

I just expect him to shout "Wooo, oh yeah haha" like every other role

@Oram77 Yes because Stargate, Aquaman and Dune don't exist.

@graymamba You understand this is pretty much the norm for big Hollwood films right? They cast popular actors. Were they using AI when John Wayne and Charlton Heston were cast in everything? Harrison Ford? Cary Grant? Steve McQueen?

Shhhhhhhhh! nobody tell Paul Verhoeven!!!!!

@DennisReynolds I'm sorry but were those your counter claims? Aquaman, really..?

Am i the only one bummed about the way he and the rest acted during the Street Fighter cast reveal, came across like a bunch of pre adolescent boys to me

@DennisReynolds maybe I should’ve added /s… but I thought it was pretty obvious tbh

@Pat_trick He directed Star Trek Beyond and it was received positively by Star Trek fans (i personally like it).

And his Fast 4, 5, and 6 was pretty good, better than Tokyo Drift, F9, and 10 imho.

So, there's enough chance this will be good which also depends on who's writing the script.

Shocker! Everyone has a problem with this, sight unseen!

Jason Momoa actually has some good comedic chops, so I don't have any problems with this casting. Justin Lin is also a pretty inoffensive pick to me.

Y'all are all being so performative with your outrage to this. "Jason Momoa isn't a good actor. How will Helldivers: The Movie be nominated for an Oscar now???"

Here's an idea: grow up and just enjoy stuff...

@PuppetMaster That's where we differ on movie tastes I guess. I think every Fast and Furious movie is absolutely awful and Star Trek Beyond is a bastardisation of what Star Trek is about. Generic action flick instead of a story about human development, working together, and diplomacy.

Since you like his movies, I hope you enjoy it, but I'm out.

@Oram77 I thought you were joking when you mentioned this on the Starship Troopers article. It's actually happening.

@Pat_trick It's all according to taste, but I think Beyond is more closely aligned with the essence of Star Trek than Into Darkness ever was. Beyond had great character building for Spock and McCoy and had great Star Trekkie comedy throughout. The villain, while totally underutilized, was a great Star Trek foil, in that he was a relic of a more violent past that Starfleet had moved on from. The motorcycle/Beastie Boys sequence was pretty lame though, I will give you that.

It really is pathetic. Helldivers is a Starship Troopers pastiche, that’s what it is. Making a movie of it is insane, we already have Starahip Troopers. This is the real issue with this wave of adaptations, so many games take inspiration from Hollywood that then adapting them just means you end up with a worse version of the project they were clearly ripping off for the game.

@wildcat_kickz I agree with you that it's not as egregious as Into the Darkness was, I just think that due to modern cinicism, directors fundamentally don't understand that Star Trek is about an almost utopian society where we finally got our sh*t together and learned how to be a united front.

As you said, it's a matter of taste. I don't wish this film to fail as I like Helldivers, but I'm not hopeful about it. If I'm wrong, it's a win for everyone.

@GirlVersusGame Yeah unfortunately it's true, I swear Hollywood's pool of actors is like 10 people...

@Pat_trick I used the general consensus including what many Star Trek fans thinks about Beyond and they believe it was a solid Trek movie. Heck, some even feels the movie was underrated. Sure it has some flaws but to claim it's "a bastardisation of what Star Trek is about"? Did we watched the same movie here or you just mistaken Beyond with other movie?

As for F&F movies, i don't know what's your problem and saying all of them are awful is a weird take. But eh, whatever.

@Oram77 The method has changed for some video-game movies too. What they do now is is call up various agencies and say, 'I'm shooting in X for these parts in X amount of time'. This is because the location is now confirmed before the talent, example the new Resident Evil. I did one day on their set in Czech Republic and they picked that location because of how taxes affect their investors. In Germany for example the loop-hole was a fifty percent return on your investment, through distribution rights alone. If the film flopped you'd still get paid. In Serbia for Silent Hill it was similar, those tax incentives meant the movie flopped but investors saw their return.

Now it's become 'Who do you have that's available?' No auditions or rehearsals, it's that streamlined. It's 'I just want someone with a name' The actors don't care about the script, they just want the payday and they get it. Maybe they spend two weeks doing callbacks and cleared their schedule for a big part they didn't get which too has become common.

Or maybe contract negotiations fell through. Maybe they were on hiatus from shooting a TV show. Whatever it is, those actors weren't busy at that time. That's how I've seen it work from the inside, I still sit in on closed sets, those actors know nothing about the project or the part and so they don't feel the need to do their job properly, just to show up and get paid.

They'll say 'he was made for the role', but really it's what the agency sourced not the studio. It's no secret, people just want to get paid. Zach Cregger (the director for that Resident Evil production) knows what's he's doing with that movie but the producer's ultimately decide on the talent and that's where a lot of those game to movie productions fall flat. Look how badly that Borderlands movie was cast, that was all down to agency availability, nothing else.

They see only the profit not the picture itself, they've already projected the distribution sales and rights for that Resi movie and it's not even in the can yet. I'll look into a couple of sound stages and see if Helldivers has been booked in, I can't see that not being one big CGI/green screen production. My concern is what effects house they'll use, I know one in London that works with Marvel and they put two hundred million dollars into the VFX for just one movie, that includes the 3D scans and particle simulations. I'd like to think Sony would go big but I don't see it. Not when I've seen and heard how game adaptions are viewed at the top.

Post-production is even worse. Colour correction, editing, special effects other than big set piece visuals (like wire removal) are done as quickly as possible since the equipment costs a lot to rent and the people doing the work aren't cheap to hire. Then boom they release the print to the distributors, cash their checks, and return the money to the investors. All before the film is seen by a single person or a single ticket has been sold. That's how Borderlands was done and Silent Hill, followed by the completion bond which means more money especially in a country with cheaper exchange rates.

Basically game adaptions are a license to print money even if they flop and that's why investors love these projects. They aren't looking at projected ticket sales anymore, they are looking at the return on their investment. Everything after that is just an added bonus, distribution right now is a mine-field, few can navigate it, those who can are winning big.

@nessisonett We already have numerous ST movies and TV shows, I don't see the harm in making 1 more called Helldivers. 😂

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls020869650/

And isn't Helldivers supposed to be the opposite of ST, we're the bad guys? Though I suppose we'll be the good guys in the movie. Maybe they'll put "Born in the USA" in the movie to not so subtlety get their point across.

I'm looking forward to Lobo, and Wrecking Crew was pretty good, so I'll watch this when it comes to some streaming service I have.

@PuppetMaster It's an opinion, if you don't like it it's not my problem.

I'm not a fan of action schlock. The dialogue is awful and the characters completely unbelievable. There are plenty of people that don't like F&F movies due to subpar writing and forced, ridiculous action scenes. But eh, whatever.

@Oram77 First film made over a billion. Also are you really going to downplay Dune and Stargate?

He was in The Fall Guy? I don't remember that.