Dave Bautista Reportedly in Talks to Take Over as Kratos in Prime Video’s God of War

Prime Video’s live-action God of War series may have found its replacement Kratos. According to a report from Variety, former WWE World Heavyweight Champion turned actor Dave Bautista is in talks with Amazon to take on the role after Ryan Hurst was written out of the production following a torn bicep suffered on set in June. Hurst underwent surgery, and with recovery from that injury running as long as a year, Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios opted to recast rather than wait. Four episodes had already been shot with Hurst at the time of the injury.

RelatedNewsRyan Hurst is Kratos in Prime Video’s Live-Action God of WarJanuary 15, 20261 min readRead the full story

Why the Role Opened Up

Hurst was announced as Kratos earlier this year, a casting that carried its own novelty given he voiced Thor in God of War Ragnarök, and he had reportedly added 40 lbs of muscle for the live-action role. He tore his bicep performing a stunt in June, halting production entirely. Deadline reported in July that prep work would restart in August with full production resuming in October, and that the four completed episodes would be reshot with a new lead. Whether that original footage ever surfaces publicly is unknown.

Bautista’s Long Flirtation With Game Adaptations

Bautista is not new to this conversation. He spent years publicly campaigning to play Marcus Fenix in a Gears of War film, a push that never produced a movie but did land him inside the franchise: The Coalition added him to Gears 5 as a playable character swap for Fenix, letting players recast the campaign lead as Bautista himself. That is roughly the ceiling a fan campaign can reach without a studio behind it, and it is worth keeping in mind here. The showrunners looking at Bautista is a separate question from whether Bautista is looking at the showrunners.

His film work outside wrestling is substantial, spanning Drax across the Guardians of the Galaxy films and the wider MCU, plus Blade Runner 2049, the Dune films, Army of the Dead, Glass Onion, Knock at the Cabin, and The Killer’s Game. He is attached to Road House 2 and Highlander.

The Heritage Angle

There is a detail fans have already latched onto. Bautista is of Greek and Filipino descent and has worn both flags proudly throughout his career. Kratos, in the original Greek saga, is a Spartan. That is a thematic alignment rather than a casting requirement, and the series is adapting the Norse arc rather than the Greek games, but the connection is there and it is the kind of thing that plays well in a casting announcement.

The Physique Question

The more contentious point is body type. Bautista has dropped a considerable amount of weight as he has aged and moved further into dramatic work, and he no longer carries the mass he did during his Evolution run twenty years ago. That cuts both ways. A leaner, weathered Bautista is arguably closer to the older, greyer Kratos of the Norse games than a peak-bulk version would be, and this adaptation covers exactly that era of the character. But a portion of the audience still pictures The Animal from 2005, and a slimmer Kratos will draw complaints from fans measuring the casting against a twenty-year-old memory rather than the 2018 game.

Some wrestling trivia for context on that era: Bautista came out of the OVW class that also produced Randy Orton, John Cena, and Brock Lesnar, widely considered the most productive developmental group in WWE history. With the exception of Orton, all of them have since retired from in-ring competition.

Dave Bautista as of 2026 has slimmed down to 240lbs as stated in his recent interviews and junkets where he says he’s gone up to 315lbs but have always wanted to drop it. Batista in his peak WWE 2005 run was billed as 290lbs and has a bodybuilder build. Now 57, at 6’4″ he still a big dude but people sees his reduction in bulk as some kind of a health issue.

What the Series Is

The show adapts the 2018 God of War reboot, following Kratos and his son Atreus as they carry the ashes of Faye, Kratos’ wife and Atreus’ mother, to the highest peak in the realms. Ronald D. Moore serves as showrunner, with Cory Barlog involved in the adaptation. Amazon has given the series a two-season order.

Outside the lead role, the cast is unchanged:

• Atreus (Callum Vinson): Kratos’ son and the emotional spine of the 2018 story.
• Baldur (Ed Skrein): The Aesir god and primary antagonist of the source game.
• Odin (Mandy Patinkin): Allfather of the Aesir.
• Thor (Olafur Darri Olafsson): The role Ryan Hurst voiced in God of War Ragnarok.
• Heimdall (Max Parker): Guardian of the Bifrost.
• Mimir (Alastair Duncan): The smartest man alive.
• Brok (Danny Woodburn) and Sindri (Jeff Gulka): The dwarven blacksmith brothers.

Production Status

The source game remains available on PC via Steam, with God of War Ragnarok also on the platform. The next entry in the franchise, God of War