Today in news that makes perfect sense, Dave Bautista may take over the role of Kratos in Amazon's God Of War TV series.
According to Variety, sources say Bautista is "currently in talks" to play demigod Kratos, the role that originally belonged to Ryan Hurst. Hurst, most recently seen in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey as Mentor, was injured while filming the series and had to bow out of the part to avoid delaying the production while he recovered.
Bautista immediately feels perfect for the part of Kratos, though I'd have to imagine the asking price for the movie star will be considerably higher than it was for Hurst, who has mainly played supporting roles. The show was also ordered for two seasons which were scheduled to shoot back-to-back, which would mean tying up Bautista for quite a while, no doubt raising his asking price even more.
On the other hand, this is Amazon we're talking about, so I have a hard time imagining they couldn't find an extra couple million dollars in the budget for Bautista.
It's not the only big videogame role that's been rumored for Bautista, who was lobbying hard back in 2022 to play the role of Marcus Fenix in Netflix's Gears of War live-action film. No casting announcements have been made yet for the Gears movie, though it sounds like the gears are still turning: director David Leitch said "I think" the Gears movie was still happening as recently as a few months ago.
