It’s not a secret that video game movies have a bad reputation, as even the most promising live-action adaptations often falter in some way. But the canceled Deus Ex movie, in development in 2012, could have been a shining light.
Based on the then-recent Deus Ex: Human Revolution, it was under development at Prime Universe Productions for CBS Films. Sinister writers Scott Derrickson (also Sinister‘s director) and C. Robert Cargill were on board to direct and write, but when Derrickson and Cargill left the project to work on the 2016 Marvel movie Doctor Strange, the project fell apart. Scott Kinney, development executive at Prime Universe Productions who worked on treatments for the film, said:
They [CBS Films] communicated that Deus Ex wasn’t the kind of film they wanted to make or felt comfortable making, that their overall strategy was shifting from action films like Dwayne Johnson’s Faster, which they had previously financed, to films more like The Duff. Of course, Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill left the project for Doctor Strange and it just died.
Scott Kinney, Development Executive at Prime Universe Productions
In an interview with USA Today, Kinney shared some highlights from a 2014 draft of the script. See an excerpt from that below. You can read the rest of the released script highlight here.
What happened to the Deus Ex movie?
Derrickson and Cargill were apparently a huge driving force behind the Deus Ex film. Without them, the movie just couldn’t come together. When asked on the project, Derrickson bemoaned having to leave it behind:
We made really good progress on that script, and it’s an incredible property. The folks over at CBS Films hired myself and C. Robert Cargill, I love them, they’re great people. It was a really positive process that was going on, and it was a little heartbreaking. Getting on Doctor Strange, this was the biggest downside of it. The fact that I needed to step off Deus Ex. I couldn’t expect them to wait for two years for me.
Scott Derrickson, director on the Deus Ex movie
With the posting of these script highlights, however, it seems like the final nail is in the coffin for the Deus Ex movie. With Derrickson currently working on a movie named The Gorge for Skydance and Kinney busy with other projects, these script previews are all we have. It’s an interesting look at what could have been.
Do you wish the Deus Ex movie was finished? Let us know!
Via USA Today.
