Golden Axe is an odd duck among video-game franchises. The high fantasy brawler is nearly universally beloved, but its sequels and spin-offs are fairly obscure, and Sega has never known quite what to do with the franchise. But hey, why let that stop them from turning it into a movie, right?

According to Heroic Hollywood, Universal is planning to bring Golden Axe to the silver screen. Yes, this Golden Axe:

As you might have noticed, they’ve got a lot of leeway with the plot, here. The Golden Axe mythology is not rich and detailed.

That said, it’s strange that Universal wants to bring this to theaters. Golden Axe is pretty obscure even by the standards of video game nerds; I doubt you’d be able to find many gamers under the age of 25 who would remember the original, let alone have actually played it. There’s a lot of nostalgia for it among nerds in their 30s, and it holds up as a game, but I’m not sure there’s much of a name to trade off to sell tickets.

On the other hand, if they just stage the whole thing like an ’80s barbarian movie, skimpy clothes, poofy hair and all, that might do the trick. In fact, if it gives us the Golden Axe movie 1989 never could, Universal might just have a hit.

(Via Heroic Hollywood)

