"Just Cause" Movie in Works

"Blue Beetle" director Ángel Manuel Soto has been tapped to helm the film adaptation of the hit video game franchise "Just Cause" at Universal Pictures.

Kelly McCormick and David Leitch, the producing duo behind the studio’s The Fall Guy and Nobody, will produce through their 87North banner. The company has a first-look deal with Universal.

Dmitri M. Johnson, Mike Goldberg, and Timothy I. Stevenson of Story Kitchen. The team is already involved in the video game space with adaptations of the Tomb Raider and Sonic the Hedgehog titles are also producing.

Since its 2006 debut, the video game from Square Enix and Avalanche Studios puts players on deadly missions as Rico Rodriguez, an operative who is a regime change specialist. Armed with a grappling hook and wingsuit, he goes on race-against-time missions to stop The Black Hand, a lethal mercenary group.

A feature adaptation spent the better part of a decade being developed by Constantin Film and saw creatives such as Brad Peyton and Derek Kolstad fly in and out before the rights eventually lapsed.

Universal jumped at the chance for the adaptation, as the studio sees the title as part of the rising wave of video game adaptations that seem to be supplanting the superhero genre at the box office. 

In 2023 alone, the studio found hits with "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" and "Five Nights at Freddy’s", which grossed over $1.4 billion and $290 million respectively in the global box office.

Dan Jevons will executive produce. Max Jacoby will be overseeing the project for 87North. Senior VP of Production Development Ryan Jones and Director of Development Tony Ducret will oversee the project for the studio.

Soto’s "Blue Beetle" was the first major superhero movie to center on a Latino hero and garnered positive reviews when it was released last year. He is currently in prep for the action movie "The Wrecking Crew" for Amazon MGM that will star Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista. He is also co-writing a Transformers spinoff with Marco Ramirez that he may direct for Paramount.