Duke Nukem Is Getting A Movie From Legendary & The Creators Of 'Cobra Kai'

Booooo. The whole point of Duke Nukem was that he was a parody of the blockbuster action hero (and at best, this would make things come full circle with the IP devolving into a sad parody of itself). Plus, the IP has been lying dormant for so long now that I’m sure most would prefer a brand new game (or remakes) over a desperate and cynical attempt at baiting nostalgic fans.

I’ve been playing since the very first family-friendly instalment and I have absolutely no interest in this (and likewise, I’ve skipped the two DOOM movies despite being a lifelong fan of that too).

It can’t be that hard to make a decent FPS. The original Duke Nukem Forever trailer showed such immense promise (and warrants revisiting), but they scraped that concept and churned out the abomination that they finally released in 2011.

And if they dare aim for a PG-13 rating in the States, then they needn’t bother at all. In any case, I can’t see them not neutering Duke to appease people who were never interested in the IP to begin with.

I’d rather spend my 90 minutes playing the classics instead.

They better get John Cena to play Duke Nukem.

And if they have to make it PG-13, then they best make two versions: a clean PG-rated version and an explicit R-rated version.

But will it be in development...forever?

@Henmii : Duke Nukem Forgotten Five Minutes After Leaving The Theatre rolls off the tongue quite nicely.

@Henmii At this rate, The Thief and the Cobbler would have had a smoother production.

Lol I wonder how this is going to play out in the modern world. Duke is an ultra macho meat head and those tropes just don't fly in a world where a vocal minority on Twitter dictate what is allowed on TV, etc.

@Matty1988 : Equally confusing is the fact that we’re supposed to be “sex positive” now. Are men like Duke not allowed to express their oozing sexuality anymore?

What a bad idea. It's going to have to cater to the woke crowd so it won't be anything like Duke.

Cobra Kai proves that it's possible to revisit an idea decades later even with an unlikeable protagonist who seems beyond redemption. So I won't automatically write this off. It's very much an uphill battle, though.

@Silly_G I enjoyed Duke Nukem Forever for what it was. I had even pre-ordered it back in the day before it came out. Reminded me alot of Half-life 2 in certain aspects. I even Duke Nukem 3D for PC back when it first came out. Love the Switch version 😁 .. I don't think the movie is necessary either but I've been hearing about Hollywood wanting to make a Duke Nukem movie now for decades so it was inevitable.

@Hydra_Spectre Similar to the 2 versions of Deadpool, lol

@Henmii It already has been.. I've been hearing about this for over 20 years, lol

I can remember them talking about this movie when I was 8 in magazines.
I'm 31 now.

I'm all for it, but I will believe it when I see it.

I would rather have a new game at this point.

They're likely to make the same mistakes as Duke Nukem Forever and take it too seriously. He needs too be an old, haggard Duke in a movie that makes fun of him and the tropes of yesteryear. Past his prime as an action hero in a world that past him by but with a possibly comedic redemtion arc. I think Josh Brolin could pull it off.

@Silly_G @Matty1988 Reacher on Amazon Prime is pretty sex positive. It takes itself seriously so it's not Duke Nukem but the actor also played Hawk on Titans who was basically a meathead so I think he can pull if off.

If they want to go olde man parody route Dolph Lungrend has basically been playing Duke Nukem in all 3 Expendables movies.😂

Uh feels like a couple decades too late. I guess these days there isn't an old IP that exists they won't try to dredge up and profit off of.

The film with the longest production time has to be Disney's The Snow Queen, a film that started as Walt Disney's successor to Snow White that wouldn't be made for over 70 years until it was heavily retooled and revamped into the final product that is Frozen.

If the Duke Nukem Forever curse still persists in the film, this would be The Thief and the Cobbler of video game movies, but if it is a success, it would be the Frozen of video game movies: a film with an extremely long and troubled production that became a massive success.
The Sonic movie is also that, since it was in development for nearly 30 years until releasing to a massive success.

Gross. Why?

dead franchise should stay dead.

@JustMonika Deadpool only had 1 cut, an R-rated cut.
Deadpool 2, however, had three different cuts: a theatrical R-rated cut, an unrated Super Duper $@%!#& Cut, and a PG-rated Once Upon a Deadpool Christmas cut.
Grace Randolph was hoping they could have made a PG cut of Deadpool 1 but it didn't happen. It is possible, however, that Marvel may release two different cuts of Deadpool in the cinemas: a clean PG cut and an explicit R cut.

This kind of thing already happens in the Philippines, the largest cinema chain here: SM Cinema, refuses to show films rated R-18 (there are three flavours of the R rating here, an R-13, R-16 and R-18).
This is why the Fifty Shades Trilogy only got a limited release here yet managed to break records, even when they already showed the censored cut made by Toho for the Japanese release and the Chinese direct-to-video release.

The local horror film The Healing was shown with a wide release censored R-13 cut and a limited release director's R-18 cut with much more gore. They came out simultaneously.
This happened again with the Keanu Reeves film Knock Knock (a censored R-16 release with a limited R-18 release) and Midsommar (a heavily-censored R-16 release with a limited R-18 release of the US R-rated theatrical cut), both releases from Lionsgate Philippines.

Robert Zemeckis was going to release Beowulf with two different versions, a clean PG-13 cut with a wide release and an NC-17 cut with an IMAX-only release, but the decision was instead to release a single R-rated version theatrically with the NC-17 version being released on home video.
The "R-rated cut" ended up getting a PG-13 and the "NC-17" cut was still rated PG-13 on the home video release, if it wasn't unrated.

I hope that Disney could be comfortable with releasing a clean PG cut and an explicit R cut of Deadpool 3, maybe with different takes and jokes between the two versions, especially since the director Shawn Levy has more success with making PG family-friendly adventure comedy films like Free Guy and The Adam Project. He would even probably be forced to do the R-rated cut while his preferred director's cut is rated PG.
That already happened with the Lucasfilm animated film Twice Upon a Time, which was filmed to be quite clean and family-friendly but the dialogue was re-recorded (without the director's knowledge or consent) to be much more vulgar to get a PG rating for its theatrical release. It ended up bombing at the box office, and the theatrical cut was pulled in favour of an unrated director's cut that is much cleaner and would have received a G rating. The Warner Archive DVD actually has both explicit PG and clean unrated dubs, since the runtime and scenes are identical, the improvised script is just different.

That said, I hope that Duke Nukem gets two different versions (clean PG and explicit R) if executives are not exactly comfortable with Duke's signature crude humour.
They can probably even release an NC-17/Unrated cut for a limited theatrical release and for the home video release.

Cobra Kai is one of my favourite TV shows, so hoping that rubs off on this adaption of Duke Nukem.

One has to wonder how a character like Duke Nukem will go over in today's world. I know he's ridiculous to the point of parody but for people who have never heard of the guy before? I'm sure his views on the world will be quite a shock.

Maybe this would have worked 20 years ago but now I think it is just hoping to exploit the name in a shallow and depressing way.

I may not like Cobra Kai all that much, but that show has an unabashedly corny 80s style that could fit Duke Nukem perfectly. The movie's still probably not going to be very good, but with those guys at the helm, it has the potential to be very fun.

@Silly_G "Sex Positivity" rule only applies to women and the LGBTQ community, especially them, because people seeing guys expressing their lust for girls as a cultural norm sort of thing, you know it's the default thing compared to the opposite so it's not celebrated.

But I dunno, maybe it has something to do with that "patriarchy" thing some of those people also talk, the metaphorical boogeyman of men in power trying to suppress marginalized groups or whatever it is they're saying.

@Hydra_Spectre The only director that I think would fit to maybe make a Duke Nukem movie is probably John Carpenter, if you've seen his action films like Escape from New York, Big Trouble in little China, and Escape from L.A. then you'll see how how he'll probably understand the vibe of Duke Nukem, maybe Escape from L.A. fits into that vibe.

Though I'm not sure if he's interested in making an action comedy film since he's more of a horror movie director as of now.

Let’s go ahead and cast Clint Eastwood as Duke!

@SteamEngenius The irony of complaining about the 'woke crowd' with a Tyler Durden profile picture.

I can only hope a new game (without Gearbox ruining it) can happen before this potentially happens.

@Silly_G

Lol, I agree! I wouldn't be surprised though if there's a new game in the making. After all it doesn't make any sense to make a movie all of a sudden about a completely dead franchise.

can a Duke Nukem movie work with today cancel culture?

Legendary don't ypu dare to make a PG-13 Duke Nukem movie, for the movie to work it need to be R

"I've got balls of steel" -Duke nukem

Either they'd completely change the character or the Twitter mob would cancel it immediately lol

If this can find the same audience that Deadpool 1 & 2 found, then this could be pretty awesome.

Duke nukem would be such an offensive character now (as many others have said), he would need to be frozen and have a massive time skip or something for his offensiveness to be acceptable. And then it would probably be better to be completely over the top with it.

@CelS I was wondering if the Karate Kid movies were popular in the UK? They were some of my favorite movies growing up, and I love Cobra Kai now.
The corny 80's is done well, and they incorporate so many throwbacks etc for fans of the original films.
Stranger Things is peak modern day 80's aesthetic! Easily one of my favorite shows.

Peacemaker kind of already is Duke Nukem. Cena would be great if they got him back. I think he’s exactly right for the role. I’m game! The target demo is my mine and there’s certainly enough of us.

Oof, the Duke sure makes the comment section more of a swamp than usual. Eh, I kinda want to check out a trailer when one releases but I doubt I'd enjoy a feature film. As someone else said, feels like a sad parody of itself at best.

Yeah, that won't work out with today's sensibilities.
The only thing that would be applauded today is its Pigcops, i can see Kotaku writing an essay about its deep, meaningful political commentary about it.
But Duke himself would need to be an entirely different character, as the macho, womanizer parody wouldn't fly today.

So, what's the point to begin with?

Oh man, they really came out in the comments. Anyone using the term "woke" is giving away what they really are...

@Silly_G They can you just don't have to be a womanizer to do it.

Cobra Kai is a great series. I also think the current movie mix could use more over-the-top meat-head macho characters. I grew up in the days of Rambo and Terminator and all that....I think the Cobra Kai creators are good at capturing the essence of the 80's and the philosophies of karate - I think they could apply the same kind of skill to even something a little silly and over-the-top like Duke Nukem.

For anyone fearing it would be too PC, uh like....have you even watched Johnny in Cobra Kai?

I am cautiously optimistic about this one.

Joel is rolling in his sleep to this news.

@russell-marlow John Carpenter would be a great fit for directing it.
If not him, then it would probably be James Gunn. His crude humour and over-the-top gore would make him a great fit for Duke Nukem. The Guardians of the Galaxy films still carry his style while being well within PG territory.
The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker basically made me believe that he could do Duke Nukem justice.

@NotArmani What was his reaction, did he stream about it?