First, it was Jack Black, now it’s Karl Urban. The line of Hollywood actors publicly campaigning for roles in Red Dead Redemption adaptations that do not exist is getting longer and every new addition makes the fact that Rockstar Games will likely never greenlight one more painful.
Urban, known for playing Billy Butcher in The Boys, Éomer in The Lord of the Rings, and Judge Dredd in Dredd, told Square Mile that Red Dead Redemption is one of his favorite video games and that he would “jump at the chance” to play John Marston if a film or TV adaptation were ever produced.
He is currently starring as Johnny Cage in the upcoming Mortal Kombat 2 and appears to be collecting video game roles with the enthusiasm of someone who genuinely loves the medium rather than someone chasing a paycheck.
And while he’s admittedly perfectly suited for the role, it doesn’t matter.
John Marston is a former outlaw trying to leave his past behind, a scarred, weary, morally compromised man who is simultaneously capable of tremendous violence and quiet tenderness. He is not a hero. He is a man doing terrible things for understandable reasons, driven by loyalty to a family he is trying to protect from the consequences of a life he chose before he understood what choosing it meant.
Karl Urban plays that archetype better than almost anyone working in Hollywood right now. Billy Butcher in The Boys is exactly this kind of character. The gravelly voice, the weathered face, the ability to project both menace and vulnerability in the same scene, Urban has every quality that a live-action John Marston would require.
This is also roughly two weeks after Jack Black publicly pitched himself for a Red Dead Redemption 3 role, playing a real historical figure who shared his name, where he also acknowledged that Houser brothers have “zero interest” in turning Rockstar’s games into movies.
The reason Rockstar will not make a Red Dead Redemption movie has nothing to do with whether good casting exists. It has everything to do with how Rockstar thinks about its games as creative works.
Rockstar’s co-founders, Dan and Sam Houser, have been consistently resistant to Hollywood adaptations throughout the studio’s history, and for a perfectly good reason, the studio’s games are complete experiences that exist in the right interactive medium. Compressing that into a two-hour movie does not add to the experience. It reduces it.
Urban may be a perfect casting choice for a character whose story already exists in its definitive form. John Marston’s arc, his journey across the dying frontier, his compromises, his sacrifice, was told completely in the original Red Dead Redemption.
A movie version would need to either retell that story (making it redundant) or tell a new one (making it a different product that uses the character’s name without the game’s narrative). Neither option improves on what already exists.
Again. This is us saying that Karl Urban would make an excellent John Marston. The facial structure, the voice, the acting range, the comfort with morally complex characters, it all fits. If Rockstar ever reversed its position and greenlit an adaptation, Urban’s name should be at the top of every casting list. Until then, try not to get your hopes up.
