Dave Bautista’s Kratos transformation is officially underway.
The new God of War lead posted a shirtless training video to Instagram on Thursday, flexing in a barn gym and looking noticeably bigger than he has in years.
“3rd week in to weight training again,” Bautista captioned the post. “2 more months to get to where I need to be. Like ridin a bike! LFG! 💪”
He set the video to Omar Cruz’s “Just When I Thought I Was Out,” a track built on the famous Godfather Part III line, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
The math checks out.
Three weeks back puts the start of his training in mid-August, right as his Kratos deal was closing.
Two more months runs into early November, a few weeks after cameras are back rolling, so he’ll keep building right through the start of the shoot.
Right On Schedule For The October Restart
Bautista closed his deal on August 20 to take over Kratos in Prime Video’s God of War, replacing Ryan Hurst, who tore a bicep performing a stunt roughly four months into filming.
Amazon is scrapping all of the original footage and restarting production from scratch in mid-October in Vancouver, with Bautista’s prep happening this month.
Ronald D. Moore remains showrunner, and the two-season, back-to-back production plan is intact.
Which makes the Instagram post a progress report on the biggest question hanging over the recast: how big Bautista gets for the role.
Kratos in the Norse-era games is a wall of muscle, and Bautista just told everyone how long he has to build one.
From The Animal To 75 Pounds Lighter, And Back Again
Bautista has spent the last few years going the other direction on purpose.
The former bodybuilder wrestled most of his WWE career around 290 pounds as Batista, “The Animal,” a six-time world champion.
By his own numbers, his heaviest ever was 370, and he bulked back up to 315 for Knock at the Cabin in 2023, which he later said is when “the nightmare started.”
From there he took up jiu-jitsu, cut his diet down, and dropped 75 pounds to around 240, the lightest he’d been since he was 19, he told Chris Van Vliet in 2024.
“I’ve sacrificed a lot of muscle. But I’m okay with it, because I just feel more comfortable.”
Kratos reverses all of that, and the wrestling world noticed immediately.
“The Animal returns!!!!!” commented wrestling star MVP, who shared WWE locker rooms with Batista in the 2000s. The reply pulled over 7,200 likes on its own.
Another top comment: “Just when you thought to get rid of Drax make up, then Kratos white make up comes 😂,” a nod to the ash-white skin that earned Kratos the Ghost of Sparta name.
The post racked up 152,000 likes and more than 7,000 comments within hours.
Bautista built the biggest body in WWE once already. At 57, he’s given himself two months to do it again.
