Paramount Pictures is developing a live-action movie set in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, bringing CD Projekt Red’s best-selling action-adventure role-playing game franchise to film.
The Hollywood Reporter says Lorenzo di Bonaventura is attached to produce alongside the Poland-based franchise rights holder. The project is based on the video game from Polish developer CD Projekt Red, although specific details about the movie’s story were not included in the report.
The film enters development with a substantial audience already behind the property. Cyberpunk 2077 has sold more than 40 million copies, while its expansion, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, has reached 15 million copies sold.
Inside the Cyberpunk 2077 Universe
The original game unfolds in Night City, a sprawling dystopian megalopolis shaped by power, glamour and body modification. Its central character, a mercenary outlaw named V, is searching for a unique implant that also serves as a key to immortality.
Keanu Reeves appears in the game as Johnny Silverhand, the leader of the band Samurai and a mercenary operating within its technology-obsessed world. The character generated considerable attention when the game was introduced.
The game’s combat includes intense gunfights, with The Hollywood Reporter comparing the action to the first-person role-playing experience of Call of Duty. However, Paramount’s adaptation is currently described more broadly as a live-action film set within the game’s universe, rather than a confirmed recreation of V’s storyline.
The franchise expanded through Phantom Liberty, which features Idris Elba as sleeper agent Solomon Reed. That release’s 15 million sales add another sizable figure to the property’s commercial record as Paramount begins developing its screen version.
Night City Has Already Reached Television
The planned movie will not be the first screen project to explore Night City. CD Projekt Red is also behind Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, the Netflix animated series that followed the release of Cyberpunk 2077 and is set in the same dystopian environment.
Edgerunners was animated by Japanese anime company Studio Trigger and directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi. The creative team’s other series include Kill la Kill and Star Wars: Visions.
Paramount’s move also arrives amid Hollywood’s continuing interest in adapting video games, particularly for streaming platforms. One prominent example cited by The Hollywood Reporter is HBO’s The Last of Us, the television adaptation of the 2013 action-adventure game from Naughty Dog and Sony.
That series was created by Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, one of the original game’s directors. Its success helped fuel the industry’s ongoing appetite for game properties that can be developed for television and film.
ShowBiz Take
Paramount is approaching a franchise that already extends beyond one game. Between the more than 40 million copies sold by Cyberpunk 2077, the 15 million sales for Phantom Liberty and the existence of Netflix’s Edgerunners, Night City has already supported multiple stories and formats.
That breadth is significant because the movie is described as being set in the wider Cyberpunk 2077 universe. The distinction potentially gives the filmmakers room to work within the established world without the report committing them to a direct retelling of the game’s central search for the immortality-linked implant.
For now, the confirmed development is the pairing of Paramount Pictures with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura and the franchise’s Poland-based rights holder. The movie’s next challenge will be translating Night City’s combination of mercenaries, advanced technology, body modification and power struggles into live action while building on a property that has already made the jump from gaming to animation.