Donnie Yen Confirms Cancellation of Sleeping Dogs Movie Adaptation

The idea of video game movie adaptations has skewed towards positivity of late, driven by the success of the likes of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the Sonic the Hedgehog trilogy, and Mortal Kombat. More are on the way as well with Horizon Zero Dawn and Helldivers 2, but for the Sleeping Dogs movie, it has unfortunately run its course.

First revealed back in 2017, the Sleeping Dogs movie adaptation seemed to have all of the right ingredients in place. It cast Donnie Yen as the lead star to portray the tough Wei Shen, and with the swift combat action being a huge part of the experience, the casting was certainly on point. Yen even expressed hope that the project would come to fruition on social media.

Yet, not all good things were meant to be. In an interview with Polygon, the actor and director confirmed that the Sleeping Dogs adaptation is no more.

“I spent a lot of time and did a lot of work with these producers, and I even invested some of my own money into obtaining the drafts and some of the rights,” Yen said. “I waited for years. Years. And I really want to do it. I have all these visions in my head, and unfortunately… I don’t know, you know how Hollywood goes, right? I spent many, many years on it. It was an unfortunate thing.

The confirmation of the bad news shouldn’t be that big of a surprise, considering that no new information has been shared in recent years. However, it still doesn’t take away from the disappointment of not seeing the action on the big screen, especially with an action star like Yen at the forefront.

The state of Sleeping Dogs as a video game franchise is equally disheartening, given Square Enix’s lack of attention to the series despite its growing fanbase. The developer, United Front Games, was shut down in 2016, four years after this hit game was released.