Director Chad Stahelski is expressing his enthusiasm about a new film he’s directing based on Sony’s Ghost of Tsushima video game. The project is being developed for PlayStation Productions.

Stahelski was quoted by ScreenRant as saying that things are coming together despite some hiccups. “We have a script, we’re very close to getting our shit together on that, as well,” he said. “Development is always tricky; it’s studios, it’s strikes, and availabilities, and scouting.

You have to will things into existence.”

In addition, Stahelski is working on several other projects, including a Highlander film and a Rainbow Six film. Preliminary plans are being laid for a fifth John Wick film to follow his John Wick: Chapter 4 movie whose global receipts totaled more than $440 million. But he made it clear that Ghost of Tsushima is a priority, one that he termed “one of my favorite properties of all time.”

“You’ve just got to give it love and attention,” he added. And Ghost of Tsushima, of probably all the other video game [films] in development, I think that’s the one that’s going to land.” The director noted that he’s trying to “push the color palette” on the Tsushima project, asking “How can you bring that world to life in a very realistic and grounded way?”

Stahelski had said that he is committed to making Ghost of Tsushima as authentic as possible, hoping to use a Japanese-speaking cast to create the ambience of thirteenth-century Japan. In this context, he acknowledged his debt to Akira Kurosawa when making the fourth installment in the John Wick series: “I would say the very first time you see John in Osaka, standing with the cherry blossoms blowing, the big wide shot, he’s got his back to us, winds blowing, you have the Kurosawa music going underneath there with the cello. I really wanted that, really bad, to show where this guy was in this spot.

”

Check out more of Edward’s articles.