Amazon's God of War TV show is starting over from scratch after the showrunner and executive producers all quit
We first heard that Amazon was making a God of War TV show at the end of 2022, but until now, there's been nothing but radio silence from the production. Finally, after a couple of years, there's some news, but it's not looking good.
The showrunner and executive producer for the show, Rafe Judkins, along with executive producers Hawk Ostby and Mark Fergus, have left the project (via Deadline). It's also reported that the trio had completed multiple scripts for the first season but that Sony and Amazon are now looking to go in a new creative direction, which includes hiring a new writers' room.
It doesn't seem like there was any bad blood between Sony, Amazon, and the trio, as one source told Deadline that the studios praised the group's writing. Judkins is still the showrunner on Amazon's Wheel of Time series, which was renewed for a third season back in '22, while also working with Sony to focus on new developments.
When we first heard about the show, we also found out that it would pretty much be a straight retelling of the story from God of War 2018: "When his beloved wife dies, Kratos sets off on a dangerous journey with his estranged son Atreus to spread her ashes from the highest peak—his wife's final wish." It's not exactly anything inspired, but God of War 2018 had a fantastic story, so it's certainly not a bad thing to stick to what you know will work. But now Amazon and Sony have announced that new showrunners will likely take the series in another creative direction there's no telling how the story may unfold.
It seems like videogame adaptations are all the rage right now. There was the atrocious Borderlands movie, which managed to set a new low for videogame movies, as well as an upcoming Minecraft movie, which honestly keeps looking worse the more I look at it—that blocky sheep haunts me. But on the other hand, there are some adaptations that I'm actually excited to see. Arcane Season 2 is getting closer and closer, and after watching the official trailer, it's hard not to get excited about it. There's also a couple of episodes I'm excited to see from Amazon's Secret Level series—the Warhammer 40k episode looks sick, and it'll be interesting to see how the Concord episode shapes up after its failed launch.