Ghost Of Tsushima Movie - What We Know So Far
Movie adaptations of video games don't exactly have the best reputation, but as long as video games keep selling millions of copies, the most popular ones will still be turned into films. And the latest video game to get the silver screen treatment is Ghost of Tsushima. On March 25, 2021, Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions announced that a Ghost of Tsushima movie is currently in development, with John Wick director Chad Stahelski at the helm, as reported by Deadline.
Ghost of Tsushima is getting a movie because it's the rare video game based on an original property that has become a massive hit in recent years. The PlayStation-exclusive title launched on July 17, 2020, on PlayStation 4, and the PlayStation 5 update came out on Nov. 12. Just three days after the PS4 launch, Ghost of Tsushima became PlayStation's fastest-selling IP at 2.4 million copies. Less than a year after launch, it's moved 6.5 million copies. It's one of the best games of 2020, and the best PlayStation games, period.
That's a big potential audience for a movie, but that's also a lot of fans the movie needs to win over. No pressure.
Here's everything we know about the Ghost of Tsushima movie.
When will the Ghost of Tsushima movie premiere?
The movie itself was just announced on March 25, 2021, so it's much too early for a release date to be set. But we can still make an educated guess.
The Ghost of Tsushima movie will be the second venture between Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions after the Uncharted movie, which is in post-production currently. The Uncharted movie has been in various stages of development as early as 2010, but it finally locked in its director and main stars back in Jan. 2020.
At that point, it was supposed to film on an accelerated production schedule to accommodate star Tom Holland, with a premiere slated for Dec. 2020. But a few weeks later, Deadline reported that the release date had been pushed back to March 2021.
Of course, then COVID-19 threw that plan out the window, and now the Uncharted movie is scheduled for Feb. 11, 2022. But if Sony and PlayStation use the same general timetable for Ghost of Tsushima that was originally used for Uncharted, that would put the earliest premiere window at March-June 2022. But again, Ghost of Tsushima hasn't even found its star yet.
Who's in the cast of the Ghost of Tsushima movie?
No casting announcements have been made yet. But even if it's way too early to speculate on who might be in the movie, we can still consider which characters from the game might appear in the film.
Jin Sakai seems like a no-brainer. He's the protagonist of the video game, the last member of a samurai order tasked with organizing the resistance against the Mongol invasion. That probably means the movie's main villain will be the same as the video game's: the Mongol general and grandson of Genghis Khan, Khotun Khan. Jin's uncle and overlord, Lord Shimura, also seems like a logical choice — the game begins when the Mongols capture him, forcing Jin to mount a rescue operation.
If the movie borrows from the game and has Jin recruiting a ragtag crew of warriors, the movie could also include Yuna the thief, her brother Taka the blacksmith, the archer Sensei Ishikawa, the merchant and con artist Kenji, and the warrior Lady Masako Adachi.
What will the Ghost of Tsushima movie be about?
Since it's based on a popular video game, the Ghost of Tsushima movie will have lots of source material to draw from. The question is, how faithful of an adaptation will it be? Even video game movies that closely adhered to the source material, like Prince of Persia or Silent Hill, still added elements not found in the games.
Even if it's a loose adaptation, the Ghost of Tsushima movie will probably involve the real-life Mongol invasion of Japan in 1274 CE, and it will probably be told from the perspective of the game's main character, Jin Sakai, who's the last living member of an order of samurai and Tsushima's only hope at stopping the Mongols. The game's plot involves rescuing Jin's jitō, Lord Shimura, whom the Mongols have captured. To do this, Jin recruits several warriors from the island to wage a guerrilla war on the numerically superior enemy. So, the movie will probably depict something like that.
But one thing does feel like a safe bet: Ghost of Tsushima will be directed by Chad Stahelski, director of the first four John Wick movies, so there will no doubt be plenty of kickass action sequences. He clearly knows how to film a sword fight.