Thomas Hayden Church is set to star as the lead villain of NBC Peacock’s upcoming TV adaptation of the cult-classic video game “Twisted Metal”, written by the team behind Deadpool and run by Cobra Kai showrunner Michael Jonathan Smith.
Church is no stranger to villainy with his role as Sandman in Spiderman 3 and Spider Man: No Way Home, so his turn as Agent Stone in “Twisted Metal” should be a delight.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Agent Stone is described as “a cold and unyielding post-apocalyptic highway patrolman who rules the roads with a silver tongue and a twisted iron fist, prosecuting even the smallest crimes with the harshest of judgements. Agent Stone will stop at nothing to bring law and order back to the Divided States of America, and will kill anyone in his path who defies his power.”
All we can say is “Yes, please.”
Church will be joined by Stephanie Beatriz and Anthony Mackie. Beatriz will play Quiet, a “ferocious, badass car thief who acts purely on instinct” while Mackie will play John Doe, “a smart ass, motor-mouthed Milkman who talks as fast as he drives, facing savage vehicles of destruction as he delivers much needed supplies from one post-apocalyptic settlement to another.”
The show will be penned by Deadpool alums Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and Kitao Sakurai is slated to direct multiple episodes of the 30 minute action comedy.
Analysis: Can video game adaptations work?
Video game adaptations have a very tormented history, with few of them ever finding an audience. For every Resident Evil, there are a dozen Uwe Boll flops or an utterly art house-bizarro Super Mario Bros.
But it’s not like video games aren’t capable of producing worthwhile stories. The Last of Us is getting a major TV adaptation, and that game should have won an Oscar as far as we’re concerned. Twisted Metal is also enough of a cult property that it just might work in a way that other titles couldn’t.
Whether it takes off remains to be seen, but we have plenty of confidence in Thomas Hayden Church helping Twisted Metal find its wings.