Square Enix Producer Teases Deus Ex, Just Cause Movies

Adrian Askarieh, a producer at Square Enix who has also worked on their multimedia offerings, is once again teasing a movie based on their Deus Ex franchise. To spice things up, though, a new tweet on Friday afternoon also teased a movie based on Just Cause.

The Deus Ex movie has been in development hell for a few years now. Originally set up with CBS Films in 2012, the movie was dropped by the company last year. Scott Derrickson was attached to direct, but left for Doctor Strange with Marvel Studios. At E3 2015, Askarieh said the movie was very much alive, saying “fans should expect a big announcement soon.” That announcement never materialized, though, and the movie seemed to drop off their slate – until now.

With a tweet showing posters on elevator doors of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Just Cause 3, the upcoming and most recent release in their respective franchises, Askarieh said, “Shhhhhhh. #DEUSEX #JUSTCAUSE #MOVIE”

Askarieh teased a movie based on the latter game’s story in September to IGN, but likewise had no concrete details to offer, and no teases since. Square Enix’s last film production, 2015’s Hitman: Agent 47 did just under $22.5 million in domestic gross ($82.3 million worldwide total) on an $8.3 million budget, but with the massive explosions in Just Cause and the science fiction, invisibility, and high tech in Deus Ex, you’d imagine those films would need considerably larger budgets. The movie also garnered an abysmal 8% fresh rating from RottenTomatoes.com.

We’ve reached out to Square Enix to see if an announcement is imminent – PAX South kicked off today, after all – and will update when we’ve heard back.

Video game movies have had a hard go of it at the box office and in critical response, with Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in 2001 being the only one out of about twenty releases to break the $100 million mark in the US, a figure Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit in less than a day (as the record holder in that category, of course). But 2016 will see a big-budget Assassin’s Creed with a premium director and major stars including Michael Fassbender, and you can bet Ubisoft is hoping for a win there. Other game companies are likely cheering them on, as once one breaks through, others are more likely to follow (just look at the comic book movie boom).