An on-set injury to Ryan Hurst is throwing a major wrench into the production of Prime Video's live-action God of War series.
According to TMZ, Hurst tore his bicep while performing a stunt during filming in Vancouver and is expected to undergo surgery. The recovery process for that type of injury can take around six months before an actor is back at full strength.
By the time the injury occurred, production had reportedly completed four of the show's 10 episodes. There's no confirmation yet on whether those four episodes will be reshot or if the series will just switch to a new actor in episode 5.
Complicating matters further is the fact that God of War was also given a rare two-season commitment, with both 10-episode seasons (20 episodes in total) planned to film back-to-back, making the setback an even bigger challenge to navigate.
Shortly after the news broke, Deadline confirmed that Amazon and Sony have decided to recast the role of Kratos. The time that Hurst would need to be sidelined to recover was reportedly greater than what the production schedule could accommodate.
This setback definitely has to be a tough pill for Hurst to swallow. Best known for roles in Remember the Titans and Sons of Anarchy, a successful adaptation of the popular God of War gaming franchise would have likely catapulted his career into another stratosphere.
Per Deadline, production is currently paused but is expected to resume in mid-October, meaning the role will be recast fairly quickly. It's likely that Sony and Amazon will turn to one of the other actors who were testing for Kratos but initially lost to Hurst.
Amazon Prime Video first announced plans for the God of War TV series back in December 2022.
In October 2024, Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica, Outlander, For All Mankind)stepped in as the new showrunner, taking over after the original creative team, Rafe Judkins (The Wheel of Time) and executive producers Hawk Ostby and Mark Fergus, left the project due to creative differences.
The upcoming series will follow the modern God of War games that focus on Norse mythology, as opposed to the original trilogy of PlayStation games that featured a more one-dimensional Kratos.
On the tone of the show, Moore previously stated, "The tone of the show is trying to emulate the tone of the game, which is this epic journey- this heartfelt journey of these two men setting out to honor the memory of Kratos' wife and Atreus' mother. So it has this emotional heart but there's this sense of history of who Kratos is and this mystery of his past and what he represents and the emotions that he's going through."
Stay tuned for future updates as it's expected that a new Kratos actor will be cast fairly soon.