The 2012 action adventure game Sleeping Dogs from United Front Games and Square Enix is getting a movie adaptation and is currently in development according to a report from Deadline. Donnie Yen of Ip Man, Star Wars: Rogue One and countless other martial arts movies has been tapped to play the lead. In the original game, the player controls the main character Wei Shen who goes undercover to infiltrate the Sun On Yee Triad organization. Sleeping Dogs is well-known for its impressive melee combat so it only makes sense that the main character will be a formidable fighter on-screen as well.
The Sleeping Dogs movie adaptation will be produced by Neal Moritz who is no stranger to action films, having produced the Fast and the Furious series. The planned Triad Wars video game spinoff was cancelled in 2015 and the Sleeping Dogs developer United Front Games may have closed shop now but the IP has a good chance of living on as a movie franchise after the release of this movie. Yen who also starred in the recent xXx: The Return of Xander Cage has proven himself to be quite the box office draw in China. He is pushing on 54 years but has shown that he still has the moves to be an action star, which is good news since producer Moritz intends to spin-off the Sleeping Dogs movie adaptation into a series much like the other big budget titles he has fostered and has Yen as the center.
Wha? A film adaption of a game adaption of a film?
I thought Sleeping Dogs was loosely based on Infernal Affairs. Also Donnie Yen is too old to play Wei, at least its not Andy Lau. Will watch, but want another Sleeping Dogs so badly.
aaand.. 5 years later… still nothing.