CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the most beloved RPGs of the last generation, and it’s a mostly fantastic game. While the RPG launched in an embarrassing state, it’s now a great time, and CDPR is working hard on a sequel.
Alongside the game, the franchise has seen huge success with the anime series Cyberpunk Edgerunners which told a beautiful story where almost every frame was based within the video game world.
Now, though, Cyberpunk 2077 is making the jump to the big screen with a brand-new movie adaptation via Paramount. Via Deadline, the film is in early production with CD Projekt Red on board, and only one other name is listed, infamous producer of mediocre films Lorenzo di Bonaventura.
Starting off as fair as we can for Lorenzo di Bonaventura, the producer is credited as acquiring the film rights for Harry Potter, although they did not produce the films that created a generation that still tell you what Wizard House they belong to. Unfortunately, for us, the films they do produce are very rarely good.
Di Bonaventura’s producer credits mostly range from okay to bad with Michael Bay’s Transformers films at the peak of his career, films which obviously land across that scale just on their lonesome. Then there’s Paramount’s awful G.I. Joe films, including 2021’s Snake Eyes, as well as the mediocre Jack Ryan films, and the horrifically dull modern reboot duology of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary films.
Outside of Paramount, the producer has produced the middling action films Red which, if I recall correctly, stands for Retired and Extremely Dangerous. They also produced Jason Statham’s okay-at-best The Meg series, and the truly horrendous cinematic crime of Sony’s Madame Web movie. Not only is Madame Web one of the worst movies ever made, it’s so bad even Avi Arad didn’t produce it, and he produced the live-action Bratz film. (I had to watch the latter with my partner, and it was bumwater.)
Even worse, though, are Di Bonaventura’s producer credits for video game movies of which there are unfortunately a number of. In 2005, the producer worked on the infamously poor, although forgivably cheesy, 2005 DOOM adaptation starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Karl Urban.
In 2019, Di Bonaventura returned to the franchise for DOOM: Annihilation, a direct-to-video reboot that earned less than $100,000 in domestic sales. Unfortunately, I’ve watched DOOM: Annihilation, and it is somehow significantly worse, although technically more faithful in some elements, than its predecessor.
The video game film adaptations don’t stop there, either. While many often forget that these movies exist, the producer was also behind the two Dead Rising films, Watchtower and Endgame. These Crackle-exclusive adaptations are mediocre at best.
It is worth noting that Lorenzo di Bonaventura’s long list of credits does include a couple of good movies. Transformers One, which released in 2024, was a pretty damn great film, and Bumblebee was also skirting the line of good. I also quite liked 1408, which they also produced. However, they also worked on the truly horrifically bad The Devil Inside which is downright criminal in its quality.
The one saving grace of the Cyberpunk 2077 film adaptation is that CD Projekt Red is involved with the movie’s production. Whether or not the game’s story will fit neatly into a two-hour condensed film or not, well, we’ll have to see, but hopefully the studio’s involvement will result in a rare great release for Lorenzo di Bonaventura’s poor, but profitable, career.
