Dave Bautista Turned Down A Fast & Furious Role To Pitch Gears Of War Movie

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Army of the Dead star Dave Bautista has revealed that he turned down an offer to star in the Fast & Furious franchise in an effort to pitch a Gears of War film adaptation. The Fast & Furious franchise began in 2001 with the Vin Diesel and Paul Walker-led box office hit that has since gone on to spawn eight sequels and one spin-off with multiple other titles in the works. The franchise has grossed nearly $6 billion at the box office. The next film in the series, F9: The Fast Saga, is set to finally hit theaters on June 25 after numerous relay delays due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

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The Gears of War video game series launched in 2006 with the bestselling first installment from Epic Games. The story takes place on the Earth-like planet of Sera and centers on the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) as they take on various threats to humanity on the planet, namely the alien race known as the Locust Horde. The original trilogy centered on Marcus Fenix and his squad in their battles while the fourth and fifth installments shifted the focus to Marcus' son J.D. and Outsider Kate Diaz.

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In an interview with Collider for the Zack Snyder zombie heist thriller, Bautista reflected back to his journey attempting to get the role of Bane in a Warner Bros. Batman film. Noting the studio wasn't interested in discussing the prospect, Bautista looked back to the time a similar situation happened with him and Universal Pictures for the Fast & Furious franchise. Read what Bautista had to say below:

"I don’t make any pretense about it. I had a chance to get a meeting at WB, they were talking to me about this and that and I said 'hey, let’s talk about Bane.' That happened to me one other time in my career. They wanted to talk to me about Fast and the Furious, and I said 'I’m not interested, let’s talk about [Gears of War character] Marcus Fenix'..."

A film adaptation of Gears of War has been long in the works across multiple studios, with the rights currently sitting at Universal and the last word coming in summer 2019 when it was confirmed the story wouldn't be set in the same universe as the games. If you look at the timeline of its arrival at Universal, it would seem the studio was looking to the Guardians of the Galaxy star for a role in either the eighth or ninth mainline Fast & Furious installments or the Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham-led spinoff Hobbs & Shaw. With roles such as Dom's brother in F9 and a whole family of Hobbs' in the spinoff, there was certainly a range of strong characters fans could've seen Bautista take on in the franchise.

That being said, a Gears of War film seems even better suited to have Bautista lead the way. With a bigger build reminiscent of Marcus, an ability to tap into some serious dramatic territory, action hero aesthetics, and sly comedic delivery, the Drax actor is the right fit to bring Epic Games' franchise to life on the screen. Even if he may be absent from the film, audiences can look forward to the return of the Fast & Furious franchise with the impending theatrical arrival of F9.