Shortly after the news broke that Dave Bautista was officially taking over the role of Kratos in Prime Video’s live-action God of War series, folks started chirping on X/Twitter. For whatever reason, detractors thought he was not in the top physical condition he was in years ago to play Sony’s pantheon-slaying patriarch. In the span of a 40-second Instagram reel, Bautista silenced all naysayers.
In said Instagram reel, Bautista let his body do the talking, removing his shirt to reveal his many tattoos and flexing for over 6.3 million followers to show that the best wrestler-turned-actor of all time is still beefy as hell. He has slimmed down since moviegoers last saw him in Guardians of the Galaxy and Dune, but if the three weeks of weight training he’s undergone before literally flexing on us is anything to go on, he’s going to look like an absolute unit when he reaches whatever physique he’s gunning for in two months’ time in preparation to play Kratos.
Originally, Prime Video’s live-action God of War series was set to have The Odyssey actor Ryan Hurst play the PlayStation icon. Unfortunately, Hurst suffered an on-set injury, tearing his bicep while performing a stunt in June. Due to Hurst’s recovery period taking upwards of six months post-surgery, Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios opted to recast the role to keep the show on schedule for its back-to-back two-season filming schedule. The recast sucks doubly for Hurst, considering his own gym selfie in Kratos war paint far eclipsed the slightly off, albeit cosplay-accurate, first look Prime Video revealed of him as Kratos and Callum Vinson as his son, Atreus, in January.
Ryan Hurst has shared a photo of himself partially in makeup as Kratos for the live-action ‘GOD OF WAR’ series before he was recast. pic.twitter.com/M9kYYrEP34
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) August 8, 2026
Dave Bautista being called the God of War in 2022
🎬 The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special pic.twitter.com/DnXnpGgRk8
— CoveredGeekly (@CoveredGeekly) August 21, 2026
If there’s any upside to this whole casting switcheroo, it’s that we’ll get to see Bautista conquer video game adaptations in the same way he has comic book and sci-fi sequels. Funnily enough, folks on Twitter who weren’t body-shaming the actor before he showed off his gains found a clip from the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas special in which fans taking a picture with Drax and Mantis mistook him for the God of War. If that’s not fate manifesting itself, we don’t know what is.
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