An indie action game akin to Max Payne, El Paso, Elsewhere is to become a film, with LaKeith Stanfield in talks to star.
Developed by indie studio Strange Scaffold – headed up by designer Xalavier Nelson Jr – third-person action videogame El Paso, Elsewhere was released to glowing reviews in 2023. Less than a year later, the Max Payne-esque shooter is to be adapted into a movie, it’s been announced.
Producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura has picked up the rights to the game though his company – the logically-named Di Bonaventura Pictures – meaning it’ll share a figurative stable with such properties as Transformers and GI Joe.
According to Variety, LaKeith Stanfield – whose latest film, the irreverent comedy The Book Of Clarence, is in UK cinemas now – is to star in the adaptation.
El Paso, Elsewhere is about a vampire hunter named James Savage, whose ex-girlfriend – named Draculae – is rather awkwardly a vampire herself. Tracking his ex down to a shadowy motel, Savage makes it his mission to save the world from Draculae and her army of ghouls.
Featuring the dual-pistol action of the Max Payne games, coupled with a noir aesthetic and a dash of anime, El Paso, Elsewhere is a stylish-looking game, and it’s easy to see how it could be used as the basis for an action movie akin to the John Wick franchise.
It’s a real coup for Xalavier Nelson Jr, the game’s writer, designer and voice actor. “Honored and delighted to finally reveal alongside LaKeith Stanfield and the Di Bonaventura team that an El Paso, Elsewhere movie is in development,” he wrote on LinkedIn shortly after Variety’s story broke. “What a wonderful, surreal moment. Couldn’t ask for better partners either!”
