Dave Bautista will play Kratos in the God of War drama series. Yes, he will play the Ghost of Sparta in Prime Video’s long-developing series, an adaptation of one of the most popular PlayStation video game franchises of all time.
Bautista replaces Ryan Hurst (The Odyssey), who tore a bicep while filming and is being recast. The show will adapt the most recent games, following Kratos and his young son Atreus on a mythic journey to scatter the ashes of Faye.
The former professional wrestler Bautista has made a name for himself in the film industry by portraying Drax in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). We know that he has the charisma and comedic timing that are crucial to showing Kratos’ relationship with his son Atreus. We’ve also seen him play a protective father character before in Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead (2021), where he needed to infiltrate a zombie-infested Las Vegas to save his daughter (Ella Purnell). While Hurst’s Kratos could’ve highlighted the character’s more restrained side as a father, Bautista’s physicality and intensity make him a great choice to capture the brutality and rage that defined Kratos.