The Gravity Rush movie just got a surprise glimpse during Sony’s CES 2024 presentation. No release or plot details were revealed but the footage, a showcase for Torchlight — the company’s newest visualisation tech — showed one of the characters leaping off a building, straight into some rubble dominated by a red, winged demon ready to fight back. The video largely cuts between CGI and motion capture clips, proving that previous reports about it being a live-action adaptation were wrong. Anna Mastro (Secret Society of Second Born Royals) was attached to direct the film then, from a script by Emily Jerome (Panopticon), marking her second writing gig.
The now-defunct Japan Studio was the lead developer on Gravity Rush, charting the tale of an amnesiac Kat, who wakes up in the floating city of Hekseville, bearing gravity manipulation powers that let her sprint across vertical walls and underside ceilings, in addition to floating mid-air to take on airborne enemies. It launched on the PlayStation Vita in 2012, leveraging its tilt controls to help you steer or rather, fall in specific directions to explore the larger open world, complete quests given by the locals, and fight the storm-borne Nevi, an alien race of monsters. The game was eventually remastered for the PS4 and followed up with a sequel in 2017. Both games were critically acclaimed and became a cult hit, but failed to perform commercially.
The Gravity Rush movie is simply adding to Sony’s PlayStation Productions label, which started with the Tom Holland-led Uncharted movie and served up additional hits in the form of the Emmy-nominated The Last of Us series, the Gran Turismo film starring David Harbour, and Peacock’s Twisted Metal. The team is also working on a Netflix series based on the dystopian post-apocalyptic game Horizon Zero Dawn and a God of War adaptation for Amazon Prime Video — writing is underway on both shows, Sony confirmed at its CES presentation. The former is being helmed by Steve Blackman, best known for creating The Umbrella Academy, and will focus on young huntress Aloy’s journey, as she grows from the outcast of her tribe and fights hostile machines.
God of War, on the other hand, is being brought to us by The Wheel of Time Creator Rafe Judkins, and presumably follows the same plot beats as the 2018 game where an exiled Kratos and his son Atreus journey to the highest peak in the nine realms to scatter his deceased wife’s ashes. No casting details or release window was revealed for either series.
Sony also seems to be working on a new Patapon project; possibly a remaster of the original rhythm strategy game or an anime, adding that the new studio space Torchlight will be a place for such experiments.
