It appears we’re getting a God of War TV series, as Sony continues to ramp up its film & television production. In a way, it’s strange it has taken this long - Sony has long been a major player in the cinema space through James Bond, Rocky, Spider-Man, and Ghostbusters, while its video games have coveted movies. Sony’s triple-A hits are mostly action-oriented third person adventures with stoic protagonists and late-game emotional beats, because hey, if it's good enough for Hollywood, it’s good enough for gamers.
I’m not entirely sure we need a God of War TV show. It’s more or less a playable TV show already, right down to the fact one of the most interesting elements about it is the camerawork. Most successful video game adaptations have ignored much of the source material, and God of War feels like one of the hardest games to do that for - but I’m also not sure the original narrative, frequently praised as one of our medium’s best, stacks up against the depth and variety of film.
That’s a debate for another day. Instead, I want to talk about something that definitely shouldn’t be a debate but almost certainly will be - Kratos should be played by a Black actor.
When you look at Kratos, you see a white person. I don’t mean Caucasian or light-skinned, I mean he’s literally white. Kratos is covered in ashes, meaning a casual observer might not realise the inherent Blackness that has always been attached to Kratos. In the brief scene where his skin turns to ash, it is clearly Black underneath. Terrence C. Carlson and Christopher Judge, the two actors to have played Kratos, are Black. White is so often seen as the default for everything from casting to medicine to emojis, but with Kratos, our default should be Black.
We don’t know what story this series will tell. God of War (2018) seems like the natural bet, but then that game does not explain the ashy complexion, or the fact said ashes are that of Kratos’ family. How does that work in a narrative where his son is alive and the core plot point is scattering his wife’s ashes? Answers on a postcard.
Another pertinent question - why is Atreus white then? Again, I don’t believe this is ever explained. My cynical guess would be that a white child was more marketable - we all saw the outrage at having a Black Angrboda in Ragnarok, and unlike Atreus she’s not a protagonist. This could be the same reason Kratos maintains his ambiguous ashy skin, despite the fact he cannot literally be covered in his family’s ashes if the story is to make sense.
Ambiguity is not an option for the live-action TV show. The actor will not walk around covered in ash in their day to day life. They will be a certain skin tone, and Sony is likely to either retreat to the safe, marketable ‘default’ and cast a white guy, or show understanding of Kratos’ origins and cast a Black guy.
Just cast the best person for the role! Right? (Hello to everyone who thought this from the headline and decided to read anyway instead of commenting on a post they hadn’t read! You get a free cookie). Bad news fellas, Margot Robbie read for the part and she was the best. It’s called Goddess of War now. What, you only like casting the best person when the best person turns out to be a straight cisgender white man? Either those dudes are the best at everything ever, or maybe someone has their thumb on the scale when it comes to ‘just cast the best person’.
You might think the Robbie example is ridiculous. What about the time Michael B. Jordan was the best person for the Human Torch? Remember how normal you all acted then?
Race-blind casting is a thing. There are some roles where skin colour is not an inherent part of their character. There are other times when casting is deliberately colour-blind to underscore key themes. Thomas Jefferson was a white, racist slave owner. Hamilton’s Jefferson is played by a Black man in Daveed Diggs, with a loose ‘fro and dressed with the flair of Prince. He raps and speaks in AAVE creole. It’s a deliberate statement on how White America steals and repurposes the culture of the Black population it violently subjugates - it’s not just funny Black man haha.
Kratos is Black, so Black should at least be your starting point even if you want to let Margot Robbie read for it too. The question then becomes how inherent to the character is his skin colour, and how much does it matter that he has only been portrayed by Black men in the past? Given that Judge has spoken openly and emotionally of how much of his own experience as a Black father was poured into what we generally agree to be the most nuanced Kratos yet, you’d have to say it’s pretty damn important.
Of course, this could all be moot. Dwayne Johnson is working on a “badass” video game adaptation of something he has been playing for years. God of War first launched in 2005. At the time, we all assumed it was a movie, because he said “bring it to the screen,” which implies the Silver Screen/big screen. He might have meant the small screen. I guess all screens look small to the Rock.
Johnson is part-Black Nova Scotian and part-Samoan, but he’s also one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. Cynically, it might be important to note that Johnson is lighter skinned than Carlson and Judge, and therefore could be seen as more marketable. He may even be in the stratosphere of celebrity with ‘00s Will Smith where he’s a box office draw first and a person of colour second - a position few in Hollywood are afforded.
In many ways, Johnson is the dream casting. He wouldn’t necessarily be my first pick - I’d rather send Winston Duke to the gym and see if he comes back beefy enough - but he ticks all the boxes. He’s the Black man Kratos canonically is, but one of the few Black actors who could just be ‘Kratos’ instead of dealing with the controversy of being ‘Black Kratos’. He also has a major pull factor, knows gaming, and is in perfect shape. If Sony ends up casting Chris Pratt instead I’m going to be pissed off.