CD Projekt CEO says the Cyberpunk 2077 movie won’t retell the game’s story

The live-action Cyberpunk 2077 film in development with Paramount Pictures won’t be a direct adaptation of the game, CD Projekt Red CEO Michał Nowakowski said in an interview with the Polish outlet PAP Biznes, as reported by Polygon.

Instead, the studio plans to set an original story in the game’s world. “We want to tell a story in the world of Cyberpunk, but it won’t be a one-to-one translation of the game’s story,” Nowakowski said. That suggests the movie is unlikely to center on V, the game’s protagonist.

CD Projekt Red announced the Paramount film recently but gave few details at the time. Nowakowski’s comments are the first official word on how the movie will approach its source material. Polygon notes that cast and crew details are still limited, though earlier reports linked producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura to the project. According to Polygon, he has previously served as an executive producer on game adaptations including Dead Rising: Watchtower (2015) and Doom: Annihilation (2019), and is currently working on a new live-action Transformers film at Paramount.

The studio used a similar approach for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, the Netflix anime series made with Studio Trigger. It told an original story set in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe. Trigger co-founder Hiroyuki Imaishi directed it, and CD Projekt Red franchise creative director Bartosz Sztybor co-wrote the screenplay with Masahiko Otsuka and Yoshiki Usa. According to Polygon, the series premiered in 2022 to strong reviews and helped revive interest in the game, which had a troubled launch, especially on consoles. A second season of Edgerunners begins on October 20.