Meet the man connecting Gears of War to Ghost Recon: Wildlands

Remember the part in Ghost Recon: Wildlands when your character did that really tough thing and said that badass quip at one of the villains? Something profanity-laced and war hard and grim. Maybe it was at the villain that unlocks the cowboy hat. Or maybe the one that gives you the pink gun. Your sidekick/handler chick was there, too, and she said also something really tough and badass and also profanity laced. Remember that part? Remember when your characters tell each other jokes and anecdotes while you’re driving to the next helicopter to take you to the next mission? Remember the cutscenes? Remember how consistent the writing is in Ubisoft’s games and how Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a perfect example of that consistency?

That’s just a taste of what you can expect if Universal ever makes a Gears of War movie. Variety reports the studio hired the Ghost Recon writer for a potential Gears of War movie. His name is Shane Salerno, and you can see it in the credits for Armageddon — yes, that Armageddon — where’s it’s listed as “adapted by” him and another fellow. That’s not language you see very often when a movie isn’t based on a comic book or something. It was the result of arbitration with the Writer’s Guild over a dispute about how many of the nine people hired to work and rework the script would get credit. Five of the nine won the arbitration. So there’s Salerno’s name alongside Tony Gilroy and JJ Abrams.

But to be fair to Salerno, James Cameron has tapped him for the upcoming Avatar movies, so Salerno’s name will be more familiar if those movies ever get made. I give it 50/50 odds. A Gears of War movie, on the other hand, probably has about a zero percent chance of ever getting made. The franchise has declined into irrelevance alongside the Xbox One. Nothing ensures failure quite like tethering your game to a ten-pound brick when you throw it into the marketplace (see also, the Halo sales numbers). Although I’ve been told you can play the latest Gears of War on the PC once you figure out whatever error the Windows Store is giving you this time.