The Sleeping Dogs movie, first announced in 2017, is officially no longer in the works. Donnie Yen was signed on to play protagonist Wei Shen back in 2017, a man who returns to Hong Kong after spending years as a cop in America to go undercover within the crime gangs of the city.
Speaking to Polygon, Yen revealed that the game adaptation is dead, despite his efforts to put it into action. “I spent a lot of time and did a lot of work with these producers, and I even invested some of my own money into obtaining the drafts and some of the rights,” he said. “I waited for years. Years. And I really want to do it. I have all these visions in my head, and unfortunately… I don’t know, you know how Hollywood goes, right? I spent many, many years on it. It was an unfortunate thing.”
Considering we’ve not heard anything on the movie for some time, this is unlikely to be surprising to many fans, but it’s still going to be disappointing news. As one of the GTA-like games to really stand out on its own, Sleeping Dogs has carved out a fanbase for over a decade now, and it’s a real shame more wasn’t done with the IP.