John Wick's Director Is Set To Adapt A Beloved Playstation Video Game

Jin Sakai in Ghosts of Tsushima

Following years of stunt work, Chad Stahelski graduated to directing in Hollywood when he co-helmed the first John Wick movie with David Leitch. Since then, Stahelski has directed the following two John Wick movies on his own, and he’ll resume those duties for John Wick: Chapter 4. But he also has plenty of other action-packed projects on his plate, the latest of which is an adaptation of the popular Playstation video game Ghosts of Tsushima.

Having already worked together on the upcoming Uncharted movie, which stars Tom Holland as treasure hunter Nathan Drake, Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions are re-teaming to adapt Ghosts of Tsushima for the big screen. Chad Stahleksi has signed on to direct this feature, as well as produce through his 87Eleven Entertainment production company alongside Alex Young and Jason Spitz. Here’s what Asad Qizilbash, the head of PlayStation Productions, told Deadline about Stahelski’s involvement:

We’re excited to be partnering with Chad and 87Eleven Entertainment, to bring their vision of Jin’s story to the big screen. We love working with creative partners like Chad, who have a passion for our games, ensuring we can create rich adaptations that will excite our fans and new audiences.

Unlike Uncharted and many other video game properties getting the film/TV treatment lately, Ghosts of Tsushima is fairly new to the gaming scene, with the game being released for the Playstation 4 in July 2020 and now being available for the Playstation 5. However, Ghosts of Tsushima (which was developed by Sucker Punch Productions) has performed incredibly well in such a short span of time, having sold over 6.5 million copies since it dropped last summer and becoming the Playstation 4’s fastest selling first-party original IP debut when it sold over 2.4 million copies worldwide within its first three days of availability. Ghosts of Tsushima also won Best Art Direction and Player’s Voice at last December’s Game Awards, and was nominated in six other categories, including Game of the Year.

For those unfamiliar with Ghosts of Tsushima, the action/adventure stealth game follows Jin Sakai, a samurai joins forces with other local warriors on the island of Tsushima to fend off a Mongolian invasion fleet led by Khotun Khan. Unfortunately, the samurai army is killed, Jin is left badly injured and his uncle Lord Shimura is taken captive. Upon healing from his wounds, Jin embarks on a journey to recruit new allies who can help him rescue Shimura and drive back the invaders.

This sort of action-packed narrative is right up Chad Stahelski’s alley, but now I have just one question: when will he be able to work on the Ghosts of Tsushima movie? Stahelski is tackling John Wick: Chapter 4 next, and with John Wick: Chapter 5 having also been announced, one wouldn’t be faulted for thinking, at least for now, he’ll direct that too. But in addition to those movies, it was also recently revealed that Stahelski has signed on to direct Classified, a Die Hard meets Indiana Jones “high octane thriller.” The filmmaker is also still attached to the Highlander reboot and the remake of the South Korean movie The Man From Nowhere.

So it’d be an understatement to say that Chad Stahelski has a lot of projects lined up, and it’ll be interesting to see where Ghosts of Tsushima falls in the order of things. Given that the game is enjoying an astounding amount of success in less than a year’s time, I suspect that Sony Pictures and Playstation Productions will want to get the film adaptation off the ground sooner rather than later so as to capitalize on the game’s popularity rather than let this linger in development hell like so many video game movies have.

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Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.