Paramount Is Developing a Live-Action Cyberpunk 2077 Movie With Transformers Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura

By CriticalPixel · 2026-10-08

Night City is headed to the multiplex. Paramount Pictures is developing a live-action film set in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, and Deadline broke the news on October 8 as an exclusive. Lorenzo di Bonaventura, the producer behind the Transformers and G.I. Joe movies, is attached to produce alongside CD Projekt Red, which holds the franchise rights. That is the entire confirmed list so far: a studio, a producer and the game's developer. No writer, director or cast has been announced, and nobody has said whether this will adapt the 2020 game or tell a new story in the same world.

Official Cyberpunk 2077 screenshot of a neon lit street in Night City

What Is Actually Confirmed

Here is the short version of what the reporting supports. Deadline describes the project as a film set in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, based on CD Projekt Red's best-selling action-adventure RPG. IGN's write-up adds that there is no word on any actors, writers or directors, and that it is unclear whether the movie will faithfully adapt the game or branch out like Netflix's animated Edgerunners series did. A release date, a budget and a format are missing from both reports. Anyone telling you this is a 2028 tentpole is guessing.

CD Projekt Red answered quickly. Co-CEO Michał Nowakowski posted on X that the studio is excited about Paramount as a future partner who shares its creative ambitions for the Cyberpunk franchise, and that more details will come at the appropriate time. That is a polite way of saying nothing yet, which is fair this early. It does tell us the studio is not a bystander cashing a licensing check, since Deadline lists CD Projekt Red as a producer on the film. The word future in that statement matters, though. This is a development announcement, and development announcements die in drawers all the time.

The Numbers Behind the Pitch

Paramount is not chasing a niche property. Deadline reports that Cyberpunk 2077 has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, and that its Phantom Liberty expansion has sold 15 million on its own. Those are the kind of figures that justify a studio spending real money, and they explain why a Hollywood company would want in on Night City now. The game's premise is also easy to pitch in one breath. V is a mercenary who ends up with a cybernetic biochip holding the engram of rockstar and terrorist Johnny Silverhand, whose consciousness slowly starts overwriting V's own while both of them take on the Arasaka Corporation.

Paramount is also stacking video game adaptations. Deadline notes the Street Fighter movie, co-produced with Legendary, opens on October 16, and the studio has a Call of Duty film in the pipeline with Peter Berg directing and co-writing alongside Taylor Sheridan. IGN says that one lands in 2028. Cyberpunk would join that group as the property built around an RPG story and a tone rather than a competitive brand, which makes it the harder sell on paper. Spectacle is easy to market. A world full of corporate rot, body modification and a dead rockstar in your head takes a steadier hand.

Official Cyberpunk 2077 screenshot showing V in Night City from the Steam store page

Where the Games Stand

The timing sits next to the games. IGN notes that CD Projekt Red is already working on the next Cyberpunk game, expected to arrive after The Witcher 4, which puts it at 2029 or 2030 at the absolute earliest. IGN then reasons that a film might not be ready until around that time either, so the two could land in the same window. That is IGN's speculation, not a schedule from anyone involved, and it should be read that way. IGN also points to the built-in star power if Paramount goes for a straight adaptation. Keanu Reeves played Johnny Silverhand in the game, Idris Elba joined the cast in Phantom Liberty, and nobody has attached either actor to the movie.

How the Community Is Taking It

Reaction on X is loud and split along familiar lines. Under IGN's post, one reply notes that the G.I. Joe and Transformers producer is now handling Cyberpunk, then asks why Keanu Reeves is not already cast. Another reply is blunter and complains that the same producer ruined Transformers, so now Cyberpunk is next. A composer wants the film to pull from Phantom Liberty, which they call a better story than the main game, and others are already pitching their dream cast with Reeves and Elba as the most requested names. That is a small slice of replies on one thread, not a poll, so treat it as the mood of the timeline rather than a verdict. The loudest worry is the producer's track record, and the loudest hope is that the movie keeps Night City's teeth.

The CriticalPixel Take

Here is where we land. A producer whose headline credits are Transformers and G.I. Joe is not the name we would have picked to guard a story about megacorporations, cybernetic decay and a dead rockstar living in your skull, and nothing in the first round of reporting pushes back on that worry. What the project does have going for it is CD Projekt Red on the producer line, which is more than plenty of game adaptations get at this stage. The studio has already watched Edgerunners stretch the universe beyond the game, so it knows what a creative partner looks like compared with a licensing check. Whether it gets real say over tone, rating and script is the question that decides everything.

Official Cyberpunk 2077 screenshot of a city skyline from the Steam store page

For now, treat this as a development announcement and nothing more. There is no cast, no director, no script and no date. The things to watch are who writes it, who directs it, and whether CD Projekt Red's involvement carries real weight in the room. If those answers are good, Night City might survive the trip to the screen. If they are bad, we get a Transformers movie with neon signs. Either way, the next Cyberpunk game is years out, so this film will be the loudest Cyberpunk news for a while. We will update the moment a writer or director gets attached.