Dwayne Johnson Once Starred In A Tie-In Video Game For A Movie That Got Cancelled

The first "Spy Hunter" video game was released in 1983 and was played by many a Gen-X arcade brat. Notably, "Spy Hunter" had licensed Henry Mancini's theme for "Peter Gunn," and the digital rendition burned its way into the brains of the people who played it. In "Spy Hunter," you controlled a high-tech white spy car. It was equipped with guns and weapons, allowing it to sail down an endless highway, shooting and destroying enemy vehicles. One played the game by wielding a trigger-encrusted steering wheel. If you shot an innocent bystander, you were penalized for a few seconds.

The 1983 cabinet launched a miniature gaming franchise that included a "Spy Hunter" pinball machine, which was ported over to ColecoVision and the Nintendo Entertainment System. "Spy Hunter II" hit arcades in 1987, while an updated reboot version of the game was made for PlayStation 2 and the GameCube (and other systems) in 2001. Eventually, the game was, in its original form, ported over to more modern home video game consoles, keeping it in the consciousness as a sweet little piece of nostalgia.

In 2003, the nostalgia was powerful enough for Universal Pictures to license "Spy Hunter" for a feature film adaptation. The idea was to make a $90 million summer blockbuster that would reach theaters in 2005. Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, the writers of the Vin Diesel-less "2 Fast 2 Furious," were hired to pen the script, while Dwayne Johnson actually signed on to play the film's lead character, Alex Decker. Universal even helped produce a tie-in video game reboot titled "SpyHunter: Nowhere to Run." Johnson himself provided his voice and digital likeness to the video game, and its story was to tie directly into the plot of the movie.

The film, however, got trapped in development hell. No script could be agreed upon and directors kept dropping out. The game, however, was completed and released in 2006.

Johnson alluded to the "Spy Hunter" movie in a post on Twitter/X back in 2018. He also mentioned that John Woo was slated to direct the project before it fell apart. Woo's orbiting of the film was first reported by Variety in 2004, but by then its original scribes had already been replaced by "Freddy vs. Jason" writers Mark Swift and Damian Shannon. Swift and Shannon would similarly end up being replaced by Zak Penn (who penned an early "Avengers" script draft before Joss Whedon boarded the film) by the time Woo signed on to helm "Spy Hunter."

The project, however, continued to stall after that, resulting in the release date being pushed back by a year. Then, in 2005, it was reported that Penn was being replaced by Stuart Beattie, the writer of "30 Days of Night," "Australia," and the first (and still one of the best) of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. It's at this point where frustrated fans were permitted to yell: "How hard could it be to write a movie about a badass spy car?"

The film finally fell apart entirely in 2007 when Woo left and Johnson quit. The only thing that had been settled on was the design of the Spy Hunter car itself, the Interceptor, and it seems that it was to have possessed high-tech morphing abilities.

Meanwhile, Midway Games got impatient and put out the game as soon as it sensed the movie was doomed. Johnson, after all, had already recorded all his lines, and the Interceptor was already incorporated into the gameplay. "SpyHunter: Nowhere to Run" hit shelves in 2006, reflecting the plot and characters of a movie that never happened.

The plot of "SpyHunter: Nowhere to Run" is typical B-movie schlock [appreciative]. Johnson, as mentioned, played Alex Decker, a star agent of the International Espionage Service. His high-tech car, the Interceptor, is stolen by agents of the evil terrorist organization NOSTRA, run by the evil criminal Gomez. In the game, Alex re-steals his car, defends IES headquarters from a NOSTRA assault, and murders Gomez's chief goon Olaf. There doesn't seem to be a very complex mythology, as secret spy organizations are invented for movies all the time. See also: IMF from "Mission: Impossible," an organization seen in movies to this day.

"Nowhere to Run" is notable in that it's the only "Spy Hunter" game wherein the player controls a human character; all of the other games put you in direct control of a car (or, in some levels, a boat). Recall that the original "Spy Hunter" was made in 1983, so video game technology was not yet sophisticated enough to include cut scenes, story, or characters. Indeed, a lot of video games at the time were already taking their cues from 1970s B-movies, so to adapt "Spy Hunter" back to the screen seemed churlish overall.

"Nowhere to Run" wasn't popular. The Times gave it a middling score, stating that the cinematic theatricality actually got in the way of some decent gameplay. The 411Mania review by Chris McCarver was especially harsh, arguing it was a Z-grade title destined for bargain bins. Sadly, he proved to be right.

The "Spy Hunter" movie did continue to develop for a short while even after "Nowhere to Run" was released. Paul W.S. Anderson was going to make a version without Dwayne Johnson, but he left so he could produce "Death Race 2." Ruben Fleischer was then brought on in 2013, although there's been no movement since. It may be wise, at this point, to forget about a "Spy Hunter" movie. There's only so much that can be done with a 1983 video game featuring the "Peter Gunn" music.