Donnie Yen's "Sleeping Dogs" Is No Longer Happening

After several years of stalled development and delays, Donnie Yen's film adaptation of the Sleeping Dogs video game is dead. 

The film adaptation was originally announced back in 2017, with Original Film and DJ2 Entertainment set to produce the project. 

Unfortunately, there has hardly been any news following the initial announcement, making the movie feel less and less likely as the years went on. 

While there have been minor updates on the project, such as a potential director and Yen's statements in 2018 about trying to get the film moving forward, there has largely been radio silence.

Now, in a new interview with Polygon, Yen has provided a devastating update on the project. Given that Yen was set to star in the video game adaptation, the actor's latest comments are even sadder, as he describes the effort he put into making it happen and trying to find the right story for the movie before ultimately moving on from the attempted adaptation.

“I spent a lot of time and did a lot of work with these producers, and I even invested some of my own money into obtaining the drafts and some of the rights," he said. "I waited for years. Years. And I really want to do it. I have all these visions in my head, and unfortunately… I don’t know, you know how Hollywood goes, right? I spent many, many years on it. It was an unfortunate thing. Well, on to better things.”

The "Rogue One" actor's choice to remove himself from the film after many years of trying to get it made is even more frustrating when looking at all the video game adaptations that have been released in the past few years. From television series like "Yakuza", "Fallout", and "The Last of Us" to feature films like "Uncharted" and the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, it seems the video game adaptation curse is over, and a Sleeping Dogs adaptation would have undoubtedly thrived had the production been able to move forward as intended.

For now, Yen has other exciting projects to work on. 

Most recently, he revealed his aspirations to direct the John Wick spin-off film focused on his character, Caine, who was introduced in "John Wick Chapter Four". 

The actor also recently directed his newest film, which he also starred in, "The Prosecutor". 

The Sleeping Dogs video game is one that's heavily focused on melee combat, making Yen's involvement feel like a perfect fit for the project.