God of War TV Show Gets Reset At Prime Video

Summary

God of War TV series development has unexpectedly stalled despite multiple scripts being written.
Main creatives, Rafe Judkins, Hawk Ostby, and Mark Fergus, departed the series.
Ronald D. Moore has stepped in as new showrunner.

With video game adaptations becoming a popular trend of late it didn't come as much of a surprise that Prime Video was eyeing an adaptation of Sony Santa Monica's popular PlayStation hit, God of War. But now development on the series has unexpectedly changed direction.

Prime Video officially ordered a God of War TV show to series in December 2022, with Amazon Studios, Sony Pictures Television, and PlayStation Productions co-producing. The studios hired Rafe Judkins as showrunner, who also helms another major series for Prime Video in The Wheel of Time. The Expanse producers Hawk Ostby and Mark Fergus also boarded the God of War series as executive producers. God of War's long-time creative director, writer, and producer, Cory Barlog, is also attached as a producer to oversee the TV adaptation.

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While writing on the God of War series was underway as of January 2024, things hit a roadblock. Deadline reported last week that Prime Video was hitting the reset button on the series, with Judkins, Ostby, and Fergus departing the TV series. The trio left despite having written multiple scripts that Sony and Prime Video were reportedly happy with. The report cites "a new creative direction" as the reason for the shakeup. On Tuesday, Deadline reported in a follow-up that the series had found its new showrunner in Star Trek creator Ronald D. Moore.

The God of War franchise has almost 20 years worth of games, marking a wealth of story potential for the TV series. However, initial reports revealed that Prime Video would focus on the 2018 God of War game for its adaptation, which is set in the Norse mythology era of the franchise. This story follows Kratos after he has left his bloody past with the Greek world behind, and has since settled in Midgard with his young son, Atreus. The duo goes on a journey to scatter the ashes of Atreus' mother at the highest peak in the nine realms, as per her last wishes, which becomes an epic quest that bonds father and son.

While the Norse era of the God of War games has been praised highly (the 2018 game and its sequel, God of War Ragnarok, are two of the highest-rated games in the series), they do occur much later in the timeline of Kratos' story. It's possible that Prime Video's new direction would have the series begin with Kratos' origins in Greece instead, before moving to the Norse era in subsequent seasons if the series is successful.

The latest reports also claim that God of War remains an "important asset" for Prime, meaning it will likely be fast-tracked in development. Following the success of other video game adaptations on TV, like HBO's The Last of Us, and Fallout's first season (also produced for Prime Video), it's clear that video game IP is a hot commodity in Hollywood right now. A proper adaptation of God of War would no doubt reach the high bar set by other prestige video game adaptations, if not raise it, so it seems unlikely that Prime Video would let development on the TV series lapse for too long.