In a recent post on Fandom, producer Nick Nunziata and writer Peter Aperlo shed some light on plans for the now scrapped Saints Row movie. The team working on the big screen adaptation also included Watchmen producer Lloyd Levin, and Nunziata says that Aperlo's "strong script" felt like, "a modern-day Escape from New York, only bigger and with that Saints Row attitude." The movie would have been set between the first and second instalments of the franchise, filling in the gaps between each.
The hope apparently was that the Saints Row movie would have been a "hard R," but the studio was more interested in a PG-13 version in order to land a bigger name actor. That could have been wrestler turned actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Aperlo claims that he was, "very interested at one point."
It sounds like the project was coming along nicely until THQ filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and the company's new owners just weren't that interested in making it a reality. Given how hit and miss (more often miss, unfortunately) video game movies are, it's hard to say whether or not Saints Row would have worked in a live-action setting. It is after all a very unique sort of property, but it will be interesting to see if it gets another chance down the line. For now, there's been no word on that.