Sony is reportedly working on a Days Gone movie

Days Gone will reportedly be the next PlayStation franchise to be adapted into a feature film.

According to Deadline, Sony’s PlayStation Productions division is working on the Days Gone movie project with Oscar nominated writer Sheldon Turner, who wrote Up in the Air and has a story credit for X-Men: First Class.

Scottish actor Sam Heughan, known for his roles in Outlander and Bloodshot, is said to be being considered for the main role of Deacon St. John, with the script said to be “a love ballad to motorcycle movies”.

The Bend Studio game is set in the Pacific Northwest after a global pandemic. The game follows former motorcycle club member Deacon St. John as he fights to survive against mutated, predatory humans in his quest to find his missing partner.

The big screen adaptation will likely be welcomed by fans of the Days Gone game, who have had plenty of reasons recently to believe Sony had all but abandoned it.

Last year a Bloomberg report first suggested that PlayStation had rejected plans for the sequel, after which the game’s leads left the company.

Sony has not released official sales numbers for Days Gone (although its director claims it sold around 10 million units), but its Metacritic score of 71 will likely have been disappointing for the company, which is used to its first-party releases enjoying near-unanimous critical acclaim.

Speaking publicly last year, Days Gone’s director Jeff Ross, who left Bend Studio in 2020 after some 20 years at the company, confirmed that he was at one point working on a Days Gone 2 pitch.

Further reading

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Days Gone director gives more details on the rejected sequel

Ex-bend lead says Days Gone 2 would have been a "definitive version" of the original vision

Ross later criticised Sony for allegedly making Bend Studio “feel like it was a big disappointment”.

“At the time I left Sony, Days Gone had been out for a year and a half (and a month), and sold over 8 million copies,” the director wrote. “It’s since gone on to sell more, and then a million+ on Steam. Local studio management always made us feel like it was a big disappointment.”

Sony Interactive Entertainment has confirmed that Bend Studio is working on a new IP and “building on the deep open-world systems that they developed with Days Gone”.