“Rent-A-Hero” Movie Adaptation In the Works

On the heels of greenlighting a movie based on Shinobi back in May, Sega-owned Stories International has now hired writers Steve Pink and Jeff Morris to try and adapt Rent-A-Hero for the silver screen.

Pink is best known for his work on the Hot Tub Time Machine franchise and, more recently, a few episodes of Angie Tribeca. Morris wrote Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever.

According to Deadline, the team is working with this synopsis:

…a slacker genius who joins a high-tech start-up that is pitched as a company to improve people’s lives but is nothing as it seems. When company insiders plan to weaponize the technology, the slacker and his fellow Rent-a-Heroes must band together to stop them.

Though that will theoretically translate well with a mainstream audience, the truth is that the video game franchise on which it’s based basically never saw the light of day outside of Japan. An attempt to localize Rent-A-Hero No. 1 to XBOX in 2003 failed, though the game is in a finished state.

The original Genesis title in 1991 was also never released outside Japan–even with a then younger Yu Suzuki at the helm. The best taste Western audiences received of the mascot was via a playable character in Fighters’ Megamix.