This is some very sad news: the Sleeping Dogs film project is well and truly buried! It was actor Donnie Yen who confirmed this to our colleagues at Polygon during an interview via Zoom, forever ruining the fantasy of seeing the license come back from the dead. Because there was potential with what was basically a True Crime Hong Kong and one of the best ersatz GTA in a triad atmosphere in the underbelly of Hong Kong. But after years of fighting to make the film exist, to the point where Donnie Yen even invested money to implement this adaptation of a video game which still sold 2.3 million copies, he there is no more hope.
“I spent a lot of time and a lot of work with these producers, and I even invested some of my own money to get the projects and some of the rights. I waited for years. Years. And I had I really want to do it. I have all these visions in my head, and unfortunately… You. you know how Hollywood works huh… I spent many, many years on this project. It was sad, but let’s move on to better things.”
First announced in 2017, the Sleeping Dogs film was to star Donnie Yen in the role of Wei Shen, the game’s protagonist, and it’s all the more infuriating since in 2018, Donnie Yen declared that the film was “in progress”, and that at one point, Indonesian filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto (The Night Comes for Us, The Shadow Strays) was in talks to direct it. Donnie Yen will console himself with new film, The Prosecutor, in which the actor also plays and directs and whose release is scheduled for January 10 in cinemas in the United States (no date for France). Note that Donnie Yen is also associated with a John Wick spin-off centered on his character Caine in John Wick 4, Caine, and he is also working on new films in the Ip Man and Flashpoint franchises.