Amazon revealed a first look at its God of War TV show on Friday and it went terribly. People rushed to gawk at the live-action adaptation’s set image featuring Ryan Hurst as Kratos and child actor Callum Vinson as a very young Atreus. The internet immediately spit out its Kombucha juice in collective confusion and bemusement. Hurst has now responded to the backlash on Instagram with a cryptic message that has some fans praying for an “ugly Sonic” turnaround.
“Don’t believe everything you see on the internet, kids,” the Sons of Anarchy actor wrote on his Instagram stories over the weekend. Fans were confused given that the image everyone was reacting to was an official marketing beat from Amazon to promote the upcoming series and not, like, a weird leak from the set or AI deepfake. But some fans are hoping that the image was just terribly assembled and touched up with AI effects and so the Spirit Halloween-looking result isn’t actually representative of the real end product.
Look, out of context TV and movie promotional photos often look like crap. Remember everyone freaking out about Superman lacing his shoes while aliens shot purple lasers in the background in the first photo for James Gunn’s reboot? First looks like these also give studios a chance to adapt costumes and makeup in light of fan reactions. Maybe this was just an elaborate trial balloon to figure out the final design?
That’s basically what some God of War fans are hoping for as they stick Amazon’s Kratos in the same bucket as “ugly Sonic.” People reacted so poorly to the initial trailer for CGI Sonic in the live-action movies that the filmmakers ended up going back and spending a bunch of money and time fixing every frame of his face. That’s one possible outcome here, though it’s still unclear what deeper truth Hurst is referring to. Is the image above failing to correctly capture how Kratos actually looks in the new TV series, or is he suggesting the show has already changed things up since back when this was taken?
I can’t wait to see how this all pans out.
