Prime Video’s God of War TV show has reportedly found its new Kratos in Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista.
Bautista had previously been in talks to play Kratos, but Variety now reports that the deal is done. The Odyssey star Ryan Hurst was previously cast as Kratos but was forced to leave the production due to a severe bicep injury onset. The original plan was to delay production and wait for Hurst to heal, but Amazon and Sony ultimately decided to recast. With Bautista on-board as Kratos, that puts things back on track to resume filming in the coming weeks, per Variety, but everything filmed with Hurst will obviously need to be reshot.
This is yet another hurdle cleared for the troubled adaptation, which took a lot of heat for a first-look image that was perceived as awkwardly framed and unfaithful to the source material.
Bautista is a retired professional wrestler and prolific actor best-known for his run as Drax the Destroyer in James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy film series, two Avengers movies, and Thor: Love and Thunder. He’s also no stranger to video game work, having appeared in dozens of WWE games since 2003, as well as the 2019 third-person shooter, Gears.
God of War’s official cast includes Ed Skrein as Baldur, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as Thor, Mandy Patinkin as Odin, Teresa Palmer as Sif, Max Parker as Heimdall, Sonya Walger as Freya, and Alastair Duncan as Mimir. There’s no release date yet.
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