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Streets of Rage to Grand Upper its way to film written by John Wick creator

The classic Sega beat-'em-up franchise returned with Dotemu's Streets of Rage 4 and will now get a movie penned by Derek Kolstad.
TJ Denzer
TJ Denzer
2

Sega’s beat-‘em-up saga Streets of Rage has gotten new life in the past couple of years thanks to the work done by Dotemu, Lizardcube, and Guard Crush Games on Streets of Rage 4. Now, it seems like Streets of Rage is about to get even further love with an adaptation to the silver screen. Sources have claimed Sega has greenlit a Streets of Rage movie on the back of Sonic the Hedgehog 2’s success with John Wick franchise creator Derek Kolstad penning the script for the film.

Word of a Kolstad-written Streets of Rage film was recently reported via Deadline on April 18, 2022. According to sources close to Sega, the company has tapped Sonic producer dj2 Entertainment and Equalizer producers Escape Artists to co-produce on the Streets of Rage film. What’s more, Derek Kolstad of John Wick fame is leading up the writing of the script for the movie. There is no current time frame for its release as of this writing.

Streets of Rage has seen renewed popularity in current times thanks to the success of Dotemu's Streets of Rage 4. It makes sense that Sega might want to give it further life in film.
Streets of Rage has seen renewed popularity in current times thanks to the success of Dotemu's Streets of Rage 4. It makes sense that Sega might want to give it further life in film.

Streets of Rage (otherwise known as Bare Knuckle in Japan) would be the latest Sega IP to come to theaters, following closely on the back of Sega and Paramount’s success with the Sonic film franchise thus far. Following its opening weekend earlier this April, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 pulled in the best box office start of any video game adaptation thus far, spurring Sega and Paramount to greenlight a third film, as well as spinoff TV series. That said, it looks like Sega is also looking to its other IPs to deliver continued success in film format as well.

Streets of Rage would be a solid one to choose from among Sega properties. After all, the franchise is experiencing a solid resurgence from 2020 and 2021 with the success of Dotemu, Lizardcube, and Guard Crush Games’ Streets of Rage 4, which had an impeccable base launch and an excellent DLC release with Mr. X Nightmare. It’s even coming to mobile devices sometime this year.

With a film now allegedly in the works, we’ll look forward to all the Ground Uppers, Embukyaku, and trash can chicken Kolstad has in store for us with the Streets of Rage film. What do you hope to see out of a Streets of Rage movie? Let us know in the Shacknews Chatty section below!

Senior News Editor
Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.

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