More than a decade since the release of his last game, Duke Nukem Forever, the franchise is gearing up for its long-awaited transition to cinema with news that Cobra Kai creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg are currently developing a movie adaptation for the Duke Nukem.
Intentions for making a film starring the gun-blasting, cigar-smoking, and strip club-loving king are nothing new, having first surfaced during the 90s when the Duke’s popularity was an at an all-time high, however, with the franchise languishing to near extinction within the gaming industry, rumors around it had quieted down. Naturally, poor reception for Duke Nukem Forever helped bury the franchise even further, as the last news that had popped up was related to John Cena being allegedly cast in the movie role back in 2018.
Now, it seems like Duke Nukem might just be set for another chance as Legendary Entertainment, the same production company behind Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy and Dune, has acquired the franchise’s film rights putting the Cobra Kai creative team made up Heald, Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and their production company Counterbalance Entertainment at the helm of the project. Joining them will be Jean Julien Bartonnet (Assassin’s Creed) from Marla Studios, a company that specializes in video game adaptations.
Since the idea was first teased, pitches for Duke Nukem movies have jumped to as many as 4 different studios with not a single one making it to any relevant completion stage. Considering the struggling state in which the franchise finds itself, it would seem like there’s hardly a better team to pull off a Duke Nukem adaptation than the men who revived Karate Kid by creating a Netflix hit out of the internet theory that Johnny Lawrence was no villain.
The Cobra Kai team is also no stranger to adapting poorly aged characters, as is the case with William Zabka’s sense Lawrence, whose inability to learn new social norms or use modern technology is often the butt of jokes in the series. Duke Nukem has always been a raunchy over-the-top interpretation of the worst masculine behaviors imaginable, and while he’s purely fictional and no one would dare to take him seriously, it’s intriguing to imagine this same humor so many years after, especially in film.
When it comes to games, Duke Nukem is currently owned by Borderlands' studio Gearbox Software, though it's a mystery whether the company has plans to revive the Duke, despite its vast experience in the FPS genre.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter