Last week saw the announcement that Remedy Entertainment and Annapurna Interactive are partnering to co-finance Control 2, and that the companies will be working together to bring “the Control and Alan Wake franchises into film and TV”. This was huge news for a lot of fans who have been dying to see these games brought to a different medium, myself included, because I was ultimately too freaked out by Alan Wake 2 to play it to completion. I would like to experience its rich universe without putting myself at risk of a panic attack.
An announcement in 2022 told fans that AMC was working on an Alan Wake show , but there have been no updates since then, which means it might have been cancelled at some point.
Almost immediately, there was a huge wave of social media posts made by fans calling for the adaptation to cast the game’s actors. The concern is understandable – too often, Hollywood A-listers are cast in place of the actors who actually popularised those characters because famous people, obviously, bring a series or movie much more exposure.
Borderlands cast a whole bunch of famous actors (Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Hart and Jack Black are all Hollywood icons), for all the good that did. Sonic the Hedgehog featured Ben Schwartz, Jim Carrey, and James Marsden, with Idris Elba and Shemar Moore showing up in the sequel. Uncharted had Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg playing its protagonists. There was also The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which featured Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black (again), Keegan-Michael Key, and Seth Rogen. I could go on.
Not all of these movies could have used those characters’ original actors, for a number of complex reasons (the voice actors look completely different, there are generations of legacy actors, etc.), but the common thread between all these films is that they entirely skip over the actors that made those characters what they are. Nolan North had a cameo in Uncharted, but that’s the extent of it. At least HBO's The Last of Us gave the original voice actors full scenes to contribute to the show with.
I can’t help but think about this Q&A with Roger Clark, the actor of Red Dead Redemption 2’s Arthur Morgan, where he that the original cast of video games “never get acknowledged or looked at” when studios are casting for adaptations. He chalks some of that up to the common problem of people not understanding “how much these video game actors physically inhabit the roles”.
Note: He then says though he’s getting too old to play Arthur, he’s already picked a worthy replacement: “Danny DeVito or we riot.” I can get behind that, Roger.
But there isn’t really a reason this has to happen with Alan Wake or Control. Many fans have pointed out that there are already live-action scenes in Alan Wake 2’s famous musical level, proving that the actors can do the acting.
In fact, a lot of the game’s actors are already screen actors. Illka Villi played Alan Wake in the live action prequel series Bright Falls. Melanie Liburd, who plays Saga in the sequel, was in This Is Us and Game of Thrones. Shawn Ashmore was a damn X-Man, and was in The Boys, among many other things. Courtney Hope, who plays Jesse Faden in Control, has loads of acting credits to her name. The cast comes built-in.
Of course, there are complications. Some characters in these games have different voice and mo-cap actors, like Alan Wake himself. This could be worked around in the game’s live action sections since they were in the minority, but it would be a pain to do so in a full movie or TV show. What’s more, Alex Casey is portrayed by both game director Sam Lake and James McCaffrey, who sadly passed away in December. But these things can and should be worked around – there’s no reason for Remedy to overlook its existing cast entirely in favour of more famous, familiar faces.
Would casting Keanu Reeves or Jared Leto (ew) in Ilkka Villi’s place draw way more eyes? Definitely. But would it suck? Yes. These games, and their beloved characters, wouldn’t exist without these specific actors developing them over time and giving them their faces. Not even considering them, like countless adaptations have done before, would be a travesty.
