Red Dead Redemption Film? Karl Urban Is Volunteering

Sometimes the best casting pitches come from the actors themselves. Karl Urban, currently wrapping up The Boys and gearing up for Mortal Kombat II in May, told Square Mile that if he could pick any video game adaptation to star in, it would be as John Marston in Red Dead Redemption. "I'd love to play that character," said Urban. "Red Dead is a fantastic game."

Urban explained that while he didn't always have time to get deep into gaming culture, Red Dead was "certainly one of the games that spoke to me." I'll say this: the man has range for it. He's played a grizzled, morally grey lawman in Dredd, a bruiser with a code in The Boys, and he's about to do washed-up action star energy as Johnny Cage. Marston isn't a huge leap from any of those, and at 54, Urban's actually in the right age window for the weathered outlaw trying to leave his past behind. It's one of those fan-casting ideas that sounds like Reddit wishful thinking until you actually sit with it for a second and realise it works.

Of course, there's no Red Dead Redemption film in development. Rockstar remains one of the only major studios not chasing the adaptation gold rush, and with GTA 6 consuming all available oxygen over there, a cowboy movie probably isn't on the whiteboard. But stranger things have happened. As reported by The A.V. Club, Kirsten Dunst landed a role in Minecraft 2 after publicly saying it was her dream gig a year earlier, though her reasoning was a bit more pragmatic: she wanted to "make a movie where I don't lose money."

Urban's next appearance will be as Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat II, where he told Square Mile to expect a humbled version of the character. "He is a man that the world has forgotten about," Urban said. "To me, that was really fertile ground to launch the character into." If he brings that same energy to a hypothetical Marston, Rockstar should at least take the meeting.