In July 2012, "The Hollywood Reporter" confirmed that two of the writers of "Pacific Rim" (2013), Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, had been hired to adapt "God of War" into a film. Melton and Dunstan told IGN that they were hired to rework Self's screenplay as it was considered to be outdated, being written before recent films in the same genre, such as "Clash of the Titans" (2010) and its sequel, "Wrath of the Titans" (2012). They said they wanted to humanize Kratos, who would begin as a mortal and still have his family, with the pivotal change being the barbarian attack. Melton added, "We're going to learn about and understand how he operates. So it's potentially 30 minutes ... of building up this character so that, when he ... becomes the Ghost of Sparta, we understand him as a human and ... the journey that he's going to take." According to Dunstan, "with a bigger movie like "God of War", you have to go quite a bit deeper into the character as opposed to a horror film". Melton and Dunstan also said they had "big plans" for Ares, who they wanted "to build up a bit more ... so that he can become a true villain" beyond his raid of Athens.