A high-profile, big-screen adaptation of the original Kane & Lynch game—developed by acclaimed studio IO Interactive (best known for the Hitman series) and released in 2007—was once a hotly pursued project, with numerous Hollywood stars linked to it over the years.
This week, director Timo Tjahjanto (Nobody 2) shared on social media that he had crafted a treatment for a potential Kane & Lynch film starring David Harbour—famed for his roles in Stranger Things and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
"Never seen a script, but a couple of years ago when that property was still kind of hot," Tjahjanto wrote. "I wrote a short treatment with James Badge Dale and David Harbour in mind. Never got anywhere."
The Kane & Lynch movie has long appeared to be stalled. Photo by Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images.
Tjahjanto isn’t alone in seeing his vision for the film go unrealized. Over the past decade, multiple iterations of the project were explored, each falling through before reaching production.
At one point, Bruce Willis and Jamie Foxx were attached to play the titular antiheroes—but both eventually dropped out as the script underwent several rewrites. Later reports suggested Gerard Butler and Vin Diesel were being eyed for the lead roles, though nothing materialized from that version either.
After the release of the poorly received sequel, Kane & Lynch: Dog Days in 2010, IO Interactive distanced itself from the franchise and refocused its efforts entirely on the Hitman series, leaving any cinematic ambitions for Kane & Lynch buried—perhaps for good.
