It hasn’t been too long since we learned that a Far Cry TV series is in the works. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Rob Mac and Alien: Earth’s Noah Hawley are leading the charge, and the latter has now revealed a bit more about his approach to adapting the beloved video game franchise. Spoiler alert: he’s not adapting any one game.
Deadline recently had the chance to sit down and chat with Hawley, who’s now preparing for the Alien show’s second season and writing the scripts for Far Cry. While the live-action adaptation of Ubisoft’s open-world FPS series is still in the early stages, he confirmed it’s moving along and could be shot shortly after Alien wraps up.
“I’ve built them both out of London at Pinewood and there is a secondary location that will serve both shows. I’ve tried to be smart about it,” he revealed when asked about how he was planning to juggle both shows. It must be noted that, while he’s overseeing the two ambitious projects, he won’t be directing the entire seasons. In fact, he’s skipping directorial duties on Alien: Earth S2 in order to better focus on Far Cry.
According to Deadline’s piece, Hawley is directing Far Cry’s first two episodes on top of writing the scripts after cracking the story. On that front, he’s re-confirmed (after the announcement last year) that his take on Far Cry won’t adapt any of the games: “One thing that really attracted me to the Far Cry franchise is that it is an anthology and every time they release a new game it is a totally different story… That’s how I approach Fargo, and it was an exciting idea that we could build an anthology game adaptation where each season is a different story about civilized people thrown into situations where they have to become increasingly uncivilized.”
While that’s a pitch-perfect description of what the Far Cry series has become under Ubisoft’s guidance, that hasn’t stopped nostalgic gamers from raising the alarm before learning anything about the show. Even Far Cry 4 creative director Alex Hutchinson said on LinkedIn Hawley’s quick comments are “pissing him off,” which suggests that even the franchise’s key creatives would rather retread old stories than honour the franchise’s format in a different medium.
“Let me have a dialog with this franchise, because this is what I think a Far Cry story is,” Hawley added before claiming video games “are built in a way that doesn’t make for the best drama” in most cases. Now that’s a point worth arguing over if you ask me, but his approach to Far Cry is sounding logical.
