A Look At A Script For The Cancelled Deus Ex Movie

Did you know it has been ten years since a Deus Ex movie was announced? What once seemed a natural step, a big-screen adaptation of a triumphantly resurgent video game franchise, ended up being nothing of the sort as the series floundered through publisher mismanagement, and the film itself ended up barely making it past the “early draft of a script” stage.


All that time passing means that it gets safer by the day for folks involved in the movie to talk about it, which leads us to this USA Today story interviewing Scott Kinney, development executive for Prime Universe Productions. Kinney was involved in the Deus Ex project at an early stage, where he “was initially in charge of writing the treatments to get the studio executives onboard.”


Kinney quickly settled on Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, who had just made Sinister, and who would later go on to write (with Derrickson directing) the screenplay for Marvel’s Dr. Strange. A 2014 Deus Ex script written by the pair has survived, and excerpts of it have been posted in the USA Today piece, some of which mean very little standing on their own, others coming alive on the page when you plug in our knowledge of what the series looks and sounds like.


While I could have shared some of the more interesting/promising ones, I am instead going to highlight this one instead, because if I had to groan out loud, you do as well:


And a calm we haven’t seen suffuses Jensen, the kind that comes with that ultimately liberating realization that everything you’ve believed about yourself is somehow wrong, and now you understand the truth.

JENSEN

(low, to self)

…Get up, Jensen.

BARRETT

(lining the mini-gun)

Was it!?

JENSEN

…I’m not like you, Barrett.

BARRETT

You’re a f****** Aug!

JENSEN

Yeah, I am. But–

BARRETT

But what?

And Jensen MOVES, running right at Barrett!

Barrett’s depressing the trigger when Jensen LEAPS, a blade extending from his right arm, and CUTTING Barrett’s arm clean off. Barrett ROARS as arm and gun fall. He swings at Jensen with the other. Jensen rolls, grabbing the arm/mini-gat, lines it–

JENSEN

I never asked for this.

–and Jensen FIRES!

Rounds blow into Barrett’s head. He falls with a THUD.


Read the full article on Kotaku