Dave Bautista will now officially play Kratos in the God of War TV series, replacing the injured Ryan Hurst

Negotiations to cast Dave Bautista in the live action God of War TV series have reportedly concluded, with the deal now officially done.

Earlier this month Deadline reported that the former WWE wrestler turned Hollywood star was having talks with Amazon MGM Studios and Sony Pictures Television to replace the injured Ryan Hurst and play the lead role of Kratos in the show.

According to Variety, those talks have now ended, and the Guardians of the Galaxy, Blade Runner 2049 and Spectre star will now indeed step into the role of Kratos.

Filming for the show originally started in February, with Ryan Hurst (Sons of Anarchy) – who played Thor in the most recent main game God of War Ragnarök – cast as Kratos.

In June, however, Hurst suffered an injury on the set which led to him tearing his bicep and requiring surgery.

After realising that recovering to full strength for a bicep tear can take up to a year, the production studios took the unfortunate decision to look for another actor to play Kratos instead.

Four episodes of the series had reportedly already been shot before Hurst was injured – these will now have to be reshot – or at least the scenes featuring Kratos – with Bautista in them instead.

Last week Hurst posed an image of himself dressed as Kratos in an Instagram story, offering fans a better look at the character than the single promotional image released (which some were critical of).

Bautista recently finished shooting the Highlander reboot, which required him to physically bulk up for the role, and given his background as a pro wrestler and action movie star, the physical demands of playing Kratos should be manageable.

The actor has recently expressed his desire to play Marcus Fenix in Netflix‘s game-to-movie adaptation of Gears of War, telling ComicBook last year: “Dude, it’s not like I’m not badgering them. You’ve got to start a petition. Come on Netflix, get it together.”

The God of War show is reportedly also facing more recasting decisions soon, but these are deliberately planned by the studios involved rather than forced on them due to injury.

Casting calls have been spotted for the show’s second season which suggest the roles of Atreus and Thrud will be recast, to cover the gap between the events of the 2018 God of War game and its sequel Ragnarok.

In Season 1, the role of Atreus will be played by Callum Vinson and Thrud will be portrayed by Island Austin, but the Season 2 casting call is for actors in the 14-17 year old age range, rather than the first season’s casting call which was looking for actors aged 9-12.