The God of War video game series is getting the big screen treatment. David Self (Road to Perdition) tapped out a screenplay a few years ago, but it needed some work after sitting on the shelf for a bit. Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton were brought in to polish the script and flesh out a few things.

The original script from Self was said to be a decent take on the game. So why were Dunstan and Melton brought in?

Dunstan:

“The only problem with that is it was written before Clash of the Titans, Wrath of the Titans, 300 and Immortals, and those movies borrowed quite a bit from the God of War stories. It was just a little bit outdated, so we wanted to differentiate it from those other movies.”

One thing they wanted to do was humanize the main character Kratos.

Dunstan:

“In the same way that Batman was grounded with Christopher Nolan’s rendition, we were attempting to do that with Kratos so that when we meet him — like they’re doing in this newest game, which is sort of a prequel to the original — we’re seeing him before he became the Ghost of Sparta, when he was just a Spartan warrior and he had family and kids.”

Melton:

“In the game… there’s that attack from the barbarians and Kratos has to call upon Ares to help him. Really, that’s going to be our first act break. Before then, he’s going to be mortal, and he’s going to have his family. We’re going to learn about him and understand how he operates. So it’s potentially 30 minutes — give or take — of building up this character so that, when he does turn and becomes the Ghost of Sparta, we understand him as a human and we understand the journey that he’s going to take. We’re emotionally invested, so that it could go beyond just this one movie.”

Here’s some more on Kratos from Dunstan:

“There was a recent movie, which will remain nameless, that depicted the main character without any fear. When you do that, how are we supposed to be afraid through him? How are we supposed to gauge anything as a legitimate threat? It’s become this dulling element. So with this, we take an intimidating presence such as Kratos, fighting and pursuing a bloodthirsty vengeance trail to the God of War. How do we make that genuinely scary? The man of action must prevail, but it’s got to hurt to getting there.”

There’s no director attached as of now. At one point Brett Ratner was on board, but good sense prevailed and he is no longer directing.

Who do want to direct God of War? Who do you see as Kratos?

SOURCE: IGN