Just How Bad Are Video Games Movies Really Is?

[Bartmanhomer]

Today my older brother and I were discussing video games movies. He told me that most video games are that bad. I know there are some video games movie is bad as the Super Mario Bros. Movie. So I would like to hear your input on how bad are video games movie really is? :sigh:

[JadedDM]

Overall, usually bad to simply mediocre. Here is a full list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_video_games) of video game movies. And yeah, even the ones I haven't seen, I remember hearing they were bad, or at least completely forgettable.

[DataNinja]

Generally they range from bad, to mediocre at best - I enjoyed Detective Pikachu enough, but it was also mostly just a passable movie with a fair bit of heart and soul put into its creation. In general... what makes a game good isn't going to translate well into a 2-3 hour movie.

Short games don't have the depth to create a movie in anything but name, and long ones will have to be severely truncated. So, the result will be either something that completely destroys what made the series good in the first place... or else it's just an idea that happens to have a recognizable IP on it. Neither of which tends to make fans happy in the slightest.

[Kitten Champion]

Most video game movies don't particularly aim high, either in terms of budget or thematic development. Most of the fighting game and FPS movies are shlock by design, and some people absolutely love that. Other ones are children's movies, which can be elevated into something great on occasion but usually they shoot for acceptable enough for the parents and can be quite profitable especially as counter-programming on weekends with more adult-focused movies.

Uwe Boll movies don't need an explanation at this point, do they? Cheap rights to C-to-D-tier games for hefty tax write-off productions.

Eventually the money - video games are the most profitable entertainment medium - and all the attention is going to yield The Dark Knight of video game movies with genuine affection from the critic crowd. My hope is it's a Dark Souls movie, so we can safely say it's the Dark Souls of Oscar nominees.

Though, I will say, some of the Japanese-only animated releases are quite good, but whatever the quality of their production most of the games they're adapting are barely a blip on Hollywood's radar. Thus Japanese-only.

[Jan Mattys]

This is my coming out: from time to time I enjoy a rewatch of Doom (2005).
It is my most secret dirty pleasure.

A movie with 19/100 on Rotten Tomatoes and 34/100 on Metacritics, but I can't help but really love it ^^

[Rynjin]

Video game movies at best are entertaining (usually cheesy, goofy fun), but not very good. These include movies like the Prince of Persia movie, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and Detective Pikachu.

At worst they are absolutely horrendous wastes of time, and this is where the majority of them fall.

[JoshL]

The first Silent Hill movie is pretty solid. The intro sequence of the second was amazing, but it all went down from there. I'm also really fond of Warcraft, and the Mortal Kombat movies are fun for what they are.

That said, I like even the terrible ones. I love Mario Bros without irony. Raul Julia's performance in Street Fighter is wonderfully ham-y. And give me a few drinks and I will gleefully watch anything Uwe Boll has done.

[Darth Credence]

Generally they range from bad, to mediocre at best - I enjoyed Detective Pikachu enough, but it was also mostly just a passable movie with a fair bit of heart and soul put into its creation. In general... what makes a game good isn't going to translate well into a 2-3 hour movie.

Short games don't have the depth to create a movie in anything but name, and long ones will have to be severely truncated. So, the result will be either something that completely destroys what made the series good in the first place... or else it's just an idea that happens to have a recognizable IP on it. Neither of which tends to make fans happy in the slightest.

I agree that there hasn't been a good one yet, but disagree that there can't be. Uncharted takes somewhere in the 7-9 hour range to beat, and a lot of that is filler (I love the game, but there's a bunch of filler). Basically tighten it up and take out the stuff the player controls and you have a movie. There certainly isn't more involved than in an Indiana Jones movie, so you could cover it.
And games that have a bunch of sequels with a new story every time could be made into a movie with a new story. I could see Just Cause working as a movie - it's could effectively be a Fast and Furious type movie, except instead of stealing things, they are trying to liberate an oppressed island. Wouldn't have to be any one they have already done - as long as there are crazy aerial stunts and a lot of things blowing up, it would be recognizable and accepted by fans.

[factotum]

The first Silent Hill movie is pretty solid.

It was an entertaining movie, and even occasionally a scary one, but taken as a Silent Hill spin-off, it failed in many, many ways. For a start, it tended to throw iconic characters from the series onto the screen (e.g. Pyramid Head and the impressively-bechested nurses, both from Silent Hill 2) without really understanding why those characters were there or what they represented, turning them into little more than brand recognition.

That's usually the problem with video game movies, in my opinion--even the best ones usually bear so little relation to the game they're nominally based on that you wonder why they bothered basing it on the game in the first place. And then you realise it was purely as a quick and cheap way to get a ready-made audience.

[monomer]

There are some okay video-game movies, but most are pretty bad. It doesn't help that Uwe Boll got the licence to make movies for many mid-sized game properties and made complete garbage.

Of the good ones, Silent Hill was already mentioned, and it was a decently crafted horror movie. The first Resident Evil movie was pretty okay as well. The first Tomb Raider was a fairly generic adventure movie, but generally enjoyable (I didn't even realize there was a new one released in 2018 which was also supposedly okay-ish).

Surprisingly, Angry Birds and Angry Birds 2 are pretty good movies. I mean, they're not great, but they're not actively bad either, they're fun and both have a few decent jokes. Angry Birds 2 actually has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 73%, which must be the highest for any video-game tie-in.

[Asmotherion]

not as bad as the reverse. Movie video games are the worst in my experiance.

Overall I don't think it's the plot that's awefull rather than the budget to hire proper actors and have half decent Cgi

[DataNinja]

I agree that there hasn't been a good one yet, but disagree that there can't be.

Oh, no, there can be... it's just something that's a lot more difficult to properly do than the people who want to do them probably feel. And I'm sure eventually we'll get one - The LEGO movie showed that even unlikely-to-be-good things with a corporate backing could end up incredibly, and Wreck It Ralph showed that a game theme could be done well - it's just not an easy thing to do. And often the things just tend to feel like cash grabs. (Hence why I said 'in general', but I'm sorry if I came across as more unyielding than I intended.)

Believe me, I'd love there to be good ones. History has just shown... that's difficult. :smalltongue:
(Also, full disclosure: I actually did like the Ratchet & Clank movie, probably because I had never involved myself with the franchise, so there was no preconceptions for me to be disappointed by.)

[Rogar Demonblud]

This is my coming out: from time to time I enjoy a rewatch of Doom (2005).
It is my most secret dirty pleasure.

A movie with 19/100 on Rotten Tomatoes and 34/100 on Metacritics, but I can't help but really love it ^^

Probably the First Person Shooter arc towards the end. Best part of the movie, IMHO.

[Peelee]

not as bad as the reverse. Movie video games are the worst in my experiance.
Indeed, for the same reason ColorFairyDataNinja noted:

In general... what makes a game good isn't going to translate well into a 2-3 hour movie.


Video game movies at best are entertaining (usually cheesy, goofy fun), but not very good.
And really, that's perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned. Do I want a LOTR-style epic multi-movie Legend of Zelda film franchise? Hell to the yes. Will I still love Street Fighter and Super Mario Bros. for just being stupid good fun? Also hell to the yes.

Also, and will always die on this hill, no matter how bad SMB was, the one thing they absolutely did right was the casting. Hoskins and Leguizamo were absolutely fantastic picks for Mario and Luigi.

[Kitten Champion]

Great games based on movies has become a lost art form of sorts. Stuff like Golden Eye, Spider-Man 2, and a lot of great Disney-based platformers for instance.

Eventually they just stopped trying with them, they often get farmed out to be mobile games if they exist at all now.

Edit: Oh, honourable mention to the X-Men Origins: Wolverine game, it's better than the movie. At least as much as I can remember.

[Strigon]

Overall, usually bad to simply mediocre. Here is a full list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_video_games) of video game movies. And yeah, even the ones I haven't seen, I remember hearing they were bad, or at least completely forgettable.

Wow, they've got a Minecraft movie in development?
That sounds... not great. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given the massive cash cow that Minecraft is, and how slow on the uptake most video game movies are. I believe we can expect a Fortnite movie in the next ten years or so.

Anyway, video game movies are usually just a way to sucker a few more bucks out of their fans. From what I've seen, despite having done no actual research, I expect they're made by someone who has never actually played a video game, but heard all about this Mario thing the kids are playing, and wants to make a movie.

[Androgeus]

I enjoyed the Tomb Raider movie from back in 2001. Although I was young then so I guess my film tastes have developed since then... who am I kidding? I loved the Warcraft movie, of corse my film tastes haven’t developed.

[Manga Shoggoth]

I enjoyed the Tomb Raider movie from back in 2001. Although I was young then so I guess my film tastes have developed since then... who am I kidding? I loved the Warcraft movie, of corse my film tastes haven’t developed.

Yup - that movie was fun. It was written to entertain and that's exactly what it did. Also Laura's butler was Rimmer* - it doesn't get better than that.


* - Ace Rimmer by the look of it

[Vinyadan]

Red Faction had a movie made after it, Red Faction: Origins. It had its dignity: while it had a low budget that showed in fight scenes and certain costumes, it still was well written (nothing incredible, but it made sense and all the characters had something they were after) and well acted. People who watched it seemed into the story (I personally liked it).

There also is something that I like that has to do with the "expanded universe": according to the comics, the main character already has a child in the timeframe of the movie (something that I am sure the writers didn't take into account, but father-son relationships are very important in the movie, so, when you consider it, it actually adds some depth).

Some however think that excessive attention spent on the film is what caused the following Red Faction: Armageddon to be not particularly good (one of the oddities of the game was having a badly written, uninvolving plot that the game constantly threw in your face).

There also are the Samurai Shodown OVAs. I've only seen he second, which isn't terrible (not for OVA standards), but the low budget really shows, and you don't know what the heck is going on except that these people know each other and one of the group really wants to kill the others.

Alone in the Dark and Max Payne both were pretty damn bad. Max Payne in particular completely missed the mood, since the game came out before 9/11 and the movie was built around facts following it.

[Bartmanhomer]

Well Detective Pikachu movie was good. The best part is that I got Pokemon cards when I got my tickets. :biggrin:

[Rodin]

*looks at the list of upcoming films*

Oh hey, they actually are doing an Uncharted movie. That makes the most sense for a video game movie. It's basically Indiana Jones, and if you do it well there's 4 games to draw from. The 4th game is basically just a movie with some obligatory gameplay anyway.

I question the choice of Tom Holland for Nathan Drake. I like Holland. I think he's a good actor. He's also only 23. Drake is supposed to be in his mid-30s at the START of the franchise. He's a weathered, experienced treasure hunter in the same mold as Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford was 36 when he did Raiders. That's the right age for the role. Holland needs a bit more mileage, and it's possible that he's so baby-faced that he would never look the right age.

Also, why are they making a Call of Duty movie? Make a war movie. Any war movie. There, you just made a Call of Duty movie. Congratulations!

[Gnoman]

Video game movies tend to be bad not because the source material is unsuitable, but because so many of them are cheap cash-ins. This is the same reason why so many movie video games are bad. The people who make them count on a reasonable profit from name recognition alone (at this point, they get a fair bit of streams or outright sales purely because gamers want to see how bad the adaptation is), and they know that the reputation of the medium will probably handicap commercial success no matter how much effort they put into things. So they don't try, and focus on keeping the budget low enough that the modest sales will be a good moneymaker.


There's no inherent requirement for them to suck - there has been more than one successful TV show (I'm thinking most strongly of the Pokemon anime and the old Sonic The Hedgehog cartoon) that translated their properties in a very watchable manner. It just requires the media makers to put in the effort and money.

[Rynjin]

I question the choice of Tom Holland for Nathan Drake. I like Holland. I think he's a good actor. He's also only 23. Drake is supposed to be in his mid-30s at the START of the franchise. He's a weathered, experienced treasure hunter in the same mold as Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford was 36 when he did Raiders. That's the right age for the role. Holland needs a bit more mileage, and it's possible that he's so baby-faced that he would never look the right age.

Minor correction, he's just barely 30 in the first one, but I think the main points stands either way.

Still, it may also be a kind of "flashback movie" to when he was earlier in his career. I know they do that several times in either 2 or 3, and I wouldn't mind watching a movie about Nathan Drake bumbling around a bit before he becomes a mass murdering super-thief.

[Rodin]

Minor correction, he's just barely 30 in the first one, but I think the main points stands either way.

Still, it may also be a kind of "flashback movie" to when he was earlier in his career. I know they do that several times in either 2 or 3, and I wouldn't mind watching a movie about Nathan Drake bumbling around a bit before he becomes a mass murdering super-thief.

There seems to be some dispute about his age, actually. The creative director/head write for the series said he was in his mid 30s. A web game set it at 25. Then the various dates of flashback events in the later games establish that he has to be 30.

Ultimately, I think both are true. He was mid-30s when the first game was made. This then got retconned to a younger age to fit a particular time frame...or maybe they just didn't care and got sloppy with the dates.

I too like the idea of a flashback movie. I would still prefer them to just do a straight adaptation of the first game for their first outing with the character, but I can see the appeal of telling their own story from scratch.

As long as we get a series of action movies with adventure-archaeology in them, I'm happy. Ideally they would be better than Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, but not having to work with an aging Harrison Ford and the baggage of an old franchise should help with that.

[Brother Oni]

I too like the idea of a flashback movie. I would still prefer them to just do a straight adaptation of the first game for their first outing with the character, but I can see the appeal of telling their own story from scratch.

There's an Uncharted fan film with Nathan Fillion playing Drake that I found quite entertaining. Unfortunately the rather graphic violence prohibits me from linking to it, but you can find it on Youtube easily enough.

Alas Nathan Fillion is getting on a bit and it shows in the fan film, much like Harrison Ford and the last Indy film, so I can understand why they went for a younger actor.

[LaZodiac]

The Uncharted movie has been in production so long their choice for Drake is now their choice for Sully, literally. It will never exist as a watchable film because it's never coming on.

Detective Pikachu ruled I don't know what y'all are talking about with this "okay" and "mediocre" stuff. Sometimes a film is good because it makes you feel good and then they give official art style of the characters from the film and it makes a good time great.

But yeah generally, as DataNinja so aptly put it, much of what makes a game good is literally incompatible with film. It just doesn't work. Even the simplest plot based game I can think of would be abysmally long as a film, and suffer from pacing if you didn't cut out stuff, stuff that kind of makes the game ENJOYABLE because... it is a game, that you are playing, and thus needs to be more active.

That being said there are extremely games that could work as films. Bayonetta, the Devil May Cry games, Metal Gear in basically every instance you can think of would all make great films. There would be some things that would need to get cut for pacing, but these short, tight, spectacle and nonsense series would make great action films.

Like in a very literal sense Metal Gear Solid 1 is better experienced as a film anyway, so just cut the middleman (and the novelist who tells you about german stuff, sorry but you're the most cuttable codec crew member!) and like, the tank fight and you'd have a perfectly serviceable skeleton for a good damn film. An action spy thriller that dips into horror with Mantis, romance with Wolf, mysticism and mystery with Raven, and then smack dab into insanity once you get to the big reveals. And that's not counting the no doubt intense fight scenes against Ocelot, Grey Fox, and then Liquid.

[JadedDM]

The Uncharted movie has been in production so long their choice for Drake is now their choice for Sully, literally. It will never exist as a watchable film because it's never coming on.

Yep, that movie has been in development for what...12 years now? They just lost their fourth director recently. He hasn't been replaced yet, so the movie currently has no director.

If the Uncharted film turns out to be even moderately good, I'll be genuinely surprised considering how much of a troubled production it has had. (That is, if it ever even comes out...)

[DataNinja]

Detective Pikachu ruled I don't know what y'all are talking about with this "okay" and "mediocre" stuff. Sometimes a film is good because it makes you feel good and then they give official art style of the characters from the film and it makes a good time great.

Oh, no, I really enjoyed it, but as a film in general it was... pretty by-the-numbers, didn't really do anything that special plot-wise. But, it had heart, which was important to those who liked the franchise... just, it wasn't anything spectacular to those who didn't have that nostalgia. That's what I was saying. It was amazing as a nostalgia-focus, but for people who didn't have that, it was just... an average movie.

[Rynjin]

Detective Pikachu ruled I don't know what y'all are talking about with this "okay" and "mediocre" stuff. Sometimes a film is good because it makes you feel good and then they give official art style of the characters from the film and it makes a good time great.

I basically toss any media that doesn't make me think of it constantly as "okay" or "pretty good". Things that are good or great change my perception of the word (or world) in some way, if that makes sense.

Basically any time I say something is "okay" it means I enjoyed it a lot at the time but haven't thought much about it since; it's praise, of a sort. =)


That being said there are extremely games that could work as films. Bayonetta, the Devil May Cry games, Metal Gear in basically every instance you can think of would all make great films. There would be some things that would need to get cut for pacing, but these short, tight, spectacle and nonsense series would make great action films.

Like in a very literal sense Metal Gear Solid 1 is better experienced as a film anyway, so just cut the middleman (and the novelist who tells you about german stuff, sorry but you're the most cuttable codec crew member!) and like, the tank fight and you'd have a perfectly serviceable skeleton for a good damn film. An action spy thriller that dips into horror with Mantis, romance with Wolf, mysticism and mystery with Raven, and then smack dab into insanity once you get to the big reveals. And that's not counting the no doubt intense fight scenes against Ocelot, Grey Fox, and then Liquid.

Man, I would love a Metal Gear Solid movie franchise...if only because it means there'd be a Snake Eater movie at some point.

MGS works great as an "in media res" franchise; everything you need to know from the first three Metal Gear games can be covered in a mission brief, which is excellent for making a 007 style movie.

[Asmotherion]

Oh, no, I really enjoyed it, but as a film in general it was... pretty by-the-numbers, didn't really do anything that special plot-wise. But, it had heart, which was important to those who liked the franchise... just, it wasn't anything spectacular to those who didn't have that nostalgia. That's what I was saying. It was amazing as a nostalgia-focus, but for people who didn't have that, it was just... an average movie.

I wouldn't count it as a video game movie; It's mostly an outdone cliche of a heartwarm cute plot, with "pokemon" used as it's "gimmick" and marketing tool to capitalise on the whole comunity of nostalgic returning fans together with the abundance of new fans due to go. Still a cool movie, but if you felt you've seen it in the past, it's because a big portion of the plot is recycled from old movies. Jack Frost anyone?

[Kitten Champion]

I wouldn't count it as a video game movie; It's mostly an outdone cliche of a heartwarm cute plot, with "pokemon" used as it's "gimmick" and marketing tool to capitalise on the whole comunity of nostalgic returning fans together with the abundance of new fans due to go. Still a cool movie, but if you felt you've seen it in the past, it's because a big portion of the plot is recycled from old movies. Jack Frost anyone?

I don't see a reason to deny that it is a video game movie though. There's essentially nothing special about deriving your plot from a video game property as opposed to adapting works in any other story-telling medium.

I mean, most games are trying to replicate the experiences we have in movies, television, and comics in the first place even if they aren't strictly an adaptation of an IP. Chances are that you'll see the cliches that originally inspired it will become obvious when the process is reversed.

Though, I have no earthly idea what a Tetris movie will be like. If indeed such a thing ever comes to pass.

[Asmotherion]

I don't see a reason to deny that it is a video game movie though. There's essentially nothing special about deriving your plot from a video game property as opposed to adapting works in any other story-telling medium.

I mean, most games are trying to replicate the experiences we have in movies, television, and comics in the first place even if they aren't strictly an adaptation of an IP. Chances are that you'll see the cliches that originally inspired it will become obvious when the process is reversed.

Though, I have no earthly idea what a Tetris movie will be like. If indeed such a thing ever comes to pass.

Eh, I just feel that a game movie is supposed to center around the game's central plot, instead of using a trademark character as an excuse to make it #pokemon. I mean the plot would turn out similar if you replaced "pokemon" with "talking dog".

Proobably some sort of War movie were the protagonist must make a wall out of debris to protect a town from invasion.

[Willie the Duck]

I wouldn't count it as a video game movie; It's mostly an outdone cliche of a heartwarm cute plot, with "pokemon" used as it's "gimmick" and marketing tool to capitalise on the whole comunity of nostalgic returning fans together with the abundance of new fans due to go.

For better or worse, 'existing plot with video game characters and references glued on' seems to be an acceptable tool in the Video Game Movie toolset. One of the first major VGMs made (the Bob Hoskins Mario Brothers one) was someone's bizarre Matrix-before-there-was-a-Matrix dark sci-fi fantasy script with the video game characters stapled to it.


I don't see a reason to deny that it is a video game movie though. There's essentially nothing special about deriving your plot from a video game property as opposed to adapting works in any other story-telling medium.

Hmm, one of the issues VGMs could have had is that adapting their plot (if it has one) to a reasonable screenplay might be genuinely a larger hurdle than, say, adapting a book (which at the very least is probably a single story with a basic challenge-climax-resolution structure). I can imagine a number of games (many of which have very different styles of engagement, with mini-stories in sub-worlds each with their own slight twists on the basic premise and often a sub-antagonist of their own) simply not fitting into a 90-120 minute movie structure very well. In a way, the Scot Pilgrim movie resembles what a lot of video game movies would look like. I think plenty of them would actually do better as a streaming miniseries (as we might start seeing more of, given the relative success of the Witcher one).

However, for the most part when these VGM have failed, what I've seen is more along the lines of just plain being lazy/assuming your audience is there for the video game references and not your well-made plot/etc.

[Floogal]

Eh, I just feel that a game movie is supposed to center around the game's central plot, instead of using a trademark character as an excuse to make it #pokemon. I mean the plot would turn out similar if you replaced "pokemon" with "talking dog". Are you aware that they didn't just make up the concept of a talking Pikachu partner? The movie was an adaptation of an already-existing video game of the same name that had the same premise. Yes, you could have hit the same emotional & story beats with Pikachu as a talking dog communicating with local animals & Mewtwo being some alien from outer space. But you could make that comparison about almost every movie that uses an existing IP instead of being completely original.

Don't complain that a Mario Kart movie was just the Mario brand slapped onto a racing movie & that a Mario movie should be brick-punching & goomba-stomping.

[Brother Oni]

But yeah generally, as DataNinja so aptly put it, much of what makes a game good is literally incompatible with film. It just doesn't work. Even the simplest plot based game I can think of would be abysmally long as a film, and suffer from pacing if you didn't cut out stuff, stuff that kind of makes the game ENJOYABLE because... it is a game, that you are playing, and thus needs to be more active.

I don't know - you can easily distil the essence of a game into movie form and effectively cut out the 'filler' - you don't need to see the characters grinding levels off weak mobs for example. There are also some games which are essentially interactive movies and would only require editing to get the run time down while keeping the plot coherent.

While I'd regard any games by Quantic Dream (e.g. Detroit: Become Human and Heavy Rain) as cheating for the purposes of this point, how about something like Asura's Wrath?

I didn't have a chance to play much of it, but the premise and setting for Murdered: Soul Suspect could be a decent film.

Approaching the subject from the opposite direction, you have Hardcore Henry, which is basically a movie trying to be a first person shooter.

[Traab]

The main thing is, they suck because they pretty much dont have to be good to make money. Much like how for the longest time (they probably still do it for all i know) virtually every popular movie gets a video game title, the reverse is also true. They tend to suck because the money men know, the brand recognition is all they really need to make a profit. They dont have to make the avengers, they can make a generic rpg, slap lord of the rings on it, and make millions. Or they can make a movie about sonic that has nothing to do with the games other than names and generic powers and people will go to see it just because its sonic and they cant help it. The movie has to be utterly TERRIBLE before it loses money. Like super mario brothers or that drek final fantasy the spirits within movie that had absolutely nothing to do with final fantasy in any way.

[DataNinja]

While I'd regard any games by Quantic Dream (e.g. Detroit: Become Human and Heavy Rain) as cheating for the purposes of this point, how about something like Asura's Wrath?

I feel like Asura's Wrath is also cheating, because it's basically already a movie that happens to have some gameplay in it. :smalltongue:

[Kitten Champion]

The main thing is, they suck because they pretty much dont have to be good to make money. Much like how for the longest time (they probably still do it for all i know) virtually every popular movie gets a video game title, the reverse is also true. They tend to suck because the money men know, the brand recognition is all they really need to make a profit. They dont have to make the avengers, they can make a generic rpg, slap lord of the rings on it, and make millions. Or they can make a movie about sonic that has nothing to do with the games other than names and generic powers and people will go to see it just because its sonic and they cant help it. The movie has to be utterly TERRIBLE before it loses money. Like super mario brothers or that drek final fantasy the spirits within movie that had absolutely nothing to do with final fantasy in any way.

Except most of them don't make much money. Even Detective Pikachu - the second-highest grossing video game movie of all time - was a fairly minor success relative to the summer blockbusters of 2019, and it was part of the biggest media IP on the planet.

The highest grossing VGM was Warcraft (though I'm aware that's a spurious metric with inflation and whatnot), and it still likely lost money at the end of day -- or at least barely recouped its cost with how troubled the production was.

Two of the biggest recent plays in the sub-genre(?) - Assassin's Creed and Tomb Raider - were disappointments in every sense of the word.

...and I'm doubting the Sonic movie will be a smash success. Though it certainly put some animators out of work after months of crunch, so there's that.

Basically, there's nothing to indicate making a lazy video game movie adaptation is a ticket to success, not with a long chain of net losses and wastes of everyone's time as evidence. In fact the general takeaway is that big enough studios with enough money put into a production and advertising - like Disney's Prince of Persia - can do... fine, I guess.

[Bartmanhomer]

Except most of them don't make much money. Even Detective Pikachu - the second-highest grossing video game movie of all time - was a fairly minor success relative to the summer blockbusters of 2019, and it was part of the biggest media IP on the planet.

The highest grossing VGM was Warcraft (though I'm aware that's a spurious metric with inflation and whatnot), and it still likely lost money at the end of day -- or at least barely recouped its cost with how troubled the production was.

Two of the biggest recent plays in the sub-genre(?) - Assassin's Creed and Tomb Raider - were disappointments in every sense of the word.

...and I'm doubting the Sonic movie will be a smash success. Though it certainly put some animators out of work after months of crunch, so there's that.

Basically, there's nothing to indicate making a lazy video game movie adaptation is a ticket to success, not with a long chain of net losses and wastes of everyone's time as evidence. In fact the general takeaway is that big enough studios with enough money put into a production and advertising - like Disney's Prince of Persia - can do... fine, I guess.
Yes and especially the redesign of Sonic as well. I'll be the judge and see if this movie worth my time. :wink:

[Peelee]

Yes and especially the redesign of Sonic as well. I'll be the judge and see if this movie worth my time. :wink:

Grammarly has been slipping more and more lately, I've noticed. Thought you'd like to know.

[Bartmanhomer]

Grammarly has been slipping more and more lately, I've noticed. Thought you'd like to know.

What's going on with my Grammarly anyway? :eek:

[Rodin]

Except most of them don't make much money. Even Detective Pikachu - the second-highest grossing video game movie of all time - was a fairly minor success relative to the summer blockbusters of 2019, and it was part of the biggest media IP on the planet.

The highest grossing VGM was Warcraft (though I'm aware that's a spurious metric with inflation and whatnot), and it still likely lost money at the end of day -- or at least barely recouped its cost with how troubled the production was.

Two of the biggest recent plays in the sub-genre(?) - Assassin's Creed and Tomb Raider - were disappointments in every sense of the word.

...and I'm doubting the Sonic movie will be a smash success. Though it certainly put some animators out of work after months of crunch, so there's that.

Basically, there's nothing to indicate making a lazy video game movie adaptation is a ticket to success, not with a long chain of net losses and wastes of everyone's time as evidence. In fact the general takeaway is that big enough studios with enough money put into a production and advertising - like Disney's Prince of Persia - can do... fine, I guess.

Which is why so many video game movies are bargain basement productions. If you're paying your actors in craft services and hiring your nephew who is "really good with computers" to do the CGI it becomes a lot easier to turn the profit. Especially with Hollywood accounting or German tax loopholes on your side.

A big problem with videogame movies is that the most well known games don't have particularly compelling plots. You're never going to get a good movie plot that's true to the games out of Sonic or Mario. I don't remember people swooning over the plot of Tomb Raider - it was the gameplay they liked. Prince of Persia is a basic rescue-the-princess and stop the evil sultan plot. The plot of the Warcraft franchise is an absolute mess.

You have a better chance with something like Uncharted that has a movie-like plot. That leads to the other problem - what do you get when you strip away the gameplay from Uncharted? An Indiana Jones movie. So why not just make that? The Last of Us is a zombie apocalypse movie with a twist ending, where your likely audience is one that's familiar with the twist. Etc etc.

There's not a whole lot of incentive to make a good movie, because you could just make that movie without the videogame association and it will do better at the box office.

And yet, Hollywood executives keep seeing this "untapped" market of gamers. So they make stuff targeted at gamers instead of just trying to make a good movie. And the gamers are too busy watching the actual good movies without a game association to want to go see the stuff targeted at them.

[LaZodiac]

I feel like Asura's Wrath is also cheating, because it's basically already a movie that happens to have some gameplay in it. :smalltongue:

Asura's Wrath presentation is that it's just an anime. So it can't be a movie.

Also, while you can just distill the feeling of a game into a movie, that won't really be the game as a movie now will it? That'd be more like... Detective Pikachu.

[Peelee]

What's going on with my Grammarly anyway? :eek:

Can you see anything wrong with this sentence?

I'll be the judge and see if this movie worth my time.
Or the thread title?

[Bartmanhomer]

Can you see anything wrong with this sentence?

Or the thread title?

No, I didn't see anything wrong with both of them.

[Gnoman]

Except most of them don't make much money. Even Detective Pikachu - the second-highest grossing video game movie of all time - was a fairly minor success relative to the summer blockbusters of 2019, and it was part of the biggest media IP on the planet.

The highest grossing VGM was Warcraft (though I'm aware that's a spurious metric with inflation and whatnot), and it still likely lost money at the end of day -- or at least barely recouped its cost with how troubled the production was.

Two of the biggest recent plays in the sub-genre(?) - Assassin's Creed and Tomb Raider - were disappointments in every sense of the word.

...and I'm doubting the Sonic movie will be a smash success. Though it certainly put some animators out of work after months of crunch, so there's that.

Basically, there's nothing to indicate making a lazy video game movie adaptation is a ticket to success, not with a long chain of net losses and wastes of everyone's time as evidence. In fact the general takeaway is that big enough studios with enough money put into a production and advertising - like Disney's Prince of Persia - can do... fine, I guess.

Pretty much every figure given for revenue with movies that you can easily find is box office only. TV licensing, streaming revenue, and DVD sales all add up to a significant amount of residual income, particularly the first two - third parties WILL snap up anything they can find cheap to bulk up their library. As long as you keep costs low, you can find a decent profit.


Also, Detective Pikachu is only disappointing compared to the Disney juggernaut >$400,000,000 is a pretty impressive take by any reasonable standard.

[Velaryon]

I can't think of any video game movies that I think have been great. Some of them are reasonably well-liked and successful, such as the Resident Evil films or the Tomb Raider series. Some of them are delightfully hammy, like Mortal Kombat. Detective Pikachu was actually pretty decent (though I still don't think the CGI looks particularly good or lifelike).

Most of them are trash though, for reasons others have mentioned. I think the biggest things video game movies tend to have going against them are, in no particular order:
1. A studio that's just trying to cash in and isn't interested in going to the trouble of understanding the appeal of the source material (i.e. the same reason why the majority of pre-MCU comic book movies were mediocre at best).
2. Being based on games whose plots are too thin for a good movie adaptation (Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter, etc.)
3. Uwe Boll.


The movie has to be utterly TERRIBLE before it loses money. Like super mario brothers or that drek final fantasy the spirits within movie that had absolutely nothing to do with final fantasy in any way.

Hey, that's not true! That movie also had a guy named Cid in it, so it's TOTALLY a Final Fantasy movie

[Kitten Champion]

Pretty much every figure given for revenue with movies that you can easily find is box office only. TV licensing, streaming revenue, and DVD sales all add up to a significant amount of residual income, particularly the first two - third parties WILL snap up anything they can find cheap to bulk up their library. As long as you keep costs low, you can find a decent profit.

You can say the same about any movie in this regard. Why make movies from a subgenre where profits rarely meet their budget? You're now depending on out-of-theatre money.



Also, Detective Pikachu is only disappointing compared to the Disney juggernaut >$400,000,000 is a pretty impressive take by any reasonable standard.

I didn't say it was a disappointment, it certainly did well enough for a sequel. Still, given Pokemon's clout as an IP and the general favourable critical reception, not making it into the top 10 summer movies isn't exactly a spectacular showing. Thus I call it a modest success in 2019 standards.

[Rogar Demonblud]

No, I didn't see anything wrong with both of them.

For starters, in the title 'games' should not be pluralized as 'movies' is fulfilling that role. And the sentence has no reason to include the word 'is'.

[Bartmanhomer]

For starters, in the title 'games' should not be pluralized as 'movies' is fulfilling that role. And the sentence has no reason to include the word 'is'.

Oh... :frown: :sigh:

[Peelee]

Oh... :frown: :sigh:

Also, the quoted sentence is missing a verb in the second clause.

On the one hand, Grammarly sounds like a nice tool. On the other, if you always use a life jacket you'll never really learn how to swim.

[Gnoman]

You can say the same about any movie in this regard. Why make movies from a subgenre where profits rarely meet their budget? You're now depending on out-of-theatre money.

Are you familiar with the term "Direct To Video"? Depending on out-of-theater revenue has been a thing since the VCR became common. And, again, they are not sticking to a subgenre where profits rarely meet budget - theater profit (when they even have a theatrical release, and is the only income figure that is easy to track down) often does not, but total revenue pretty much always does, else the people making them would be bankrupt. They stick to the subgenre because the licenses are very cheap and name recognition will attract at least some attention. The films are crapped out for next to nothing, the studio makes a few hundred grand, and the cycle repeats.

[Peelee]

One of my favorite jokes as a teen was listing all the Ernest movies. Like Ernest Goes to Jail, Ernest Goes to School, Ernest Goes Straight to Home Video...

[Kitten Champion]

Are you familiar with the term "Direct To Video"? Depending on out-of-theater revenue has been a thing since the VCR became common. And, again, they are not sticking to a subgenre where profits rarely meet budget - theater profit (when they even have a theatrical release, and is the only income figure that is easy to track down) often does not, but total revenue pretty much always does, else the people making them would be bankrupt. They stick to the subgenre because the licenses are very cheap and name recognition will attract at least some attention. The films are crapped out for next to nothing, the studio makes a few hundred grand, and the cycle repeats.

Oh, no, that I understand. Making a low-to-middling quality movie on the cheap can balloon profits with the right model, it's the basis for much of the horror genre for instance. The long-lived Resident Evil movie franchise makes perfect sense given the return on investment those get.

The issue of the thread is why there's this dire state of video game movie adaptations, not can you make profitable movies if you cut costs enough and use an IP as a crutch.

That there's a dubious 30-year history there and no obviously successful model outside of cheap cash-grabs makes pushing for an upscale Hollywood movie more questionable from the business side of things.

[Saintheart]

I thought The Witcher isn't a bad video game movie :smallbiggrin: :smallbiggrin: :smallbiggrin:

[Bohandas]

The Pokemon movies are pretty good.

So was Clue, although admittedly that's a boardgame, not a videogame

[Rogar Demonblud]

It's hard to go wrong with Tim Curry hamming it up. He was also a delight in The Shadow and Oscar.

[Bohandas]

It's hard to go wrong with Tim Curry hamming it up. He was also a delight in The Shadow and Oscar.

and in Muppet Treasure Island and The Rocky Horror Picture Show

[Peelee]

Look, if we're gonna sit around and list all the things Tim Curry was delightful in we're gonna be posting all day, and probably sometime into tomorrow.

[Willie the Duck]

Look, if we're gonna sit around and list all the things Tim Curry was delightful in we're gonna be posting all day, and probably sometime into tomorrow.

I was going to make the joke:

Honestly, we should be making a list of all the things Tim Curry was in and wasn't delightful.
I'll start.
…
…
and done.
But then I checked out his IMDB page and found out that he is in a bunch of stuff (lots and lots of children's tv voices) where he doesn't stand out.

[AvatarVecna]

I don't wanna say that movies based on video games can't be good, but I will say that trying to tell the same story in a medium it wasn't originally designed for is always going to be an uphill battle. There are three aspects to a game's story from an adaption point of view: is it long enough to make a movie out of it, is it interesting enough to make a successful movie out of it, and does the success of the story hinge too much on the "player interaction" aspect of video games? Typically, one of the three answers will end up making your movie not work out too well.

[Traab]

Sorry, I cant think of Tim Curry without TOXIC LOVE! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVzYS3Ga_j8)

[NeoVid]

I'm pretty sure that the video game movies that turn out to actually be entertaining is that the people working on them actually give a crap about making them entertaining. There's a reason we still talk about the Mortal Kombat movies (totally different reasons we talk about the first and second ones, though) and that no one even remembers there was a Double Dragon movie.

As a side point, what I believe is a major reason the first MK was as good as it was was due to the low budget. Instead of planning to overload it with SFX from the start, they completed the film, watched the original cut, then decided it looked too bland so they went back and added ten mill of special effects. I'm betting that was a good thing, because we all know what movies that use tons of special effects in place of things like a plot or acting turn out to be like.

[Man on Fire]

I will throw it here - for how bad first Mortal Kombat movie was it did flesh out and added to the mythos a lot of things, like both Johnny and Sonya and Liu and Kitana being lead romantic relationships of the franchise

[Velaryon]

Mortal Kombat also got a nice boost out of the quality soundtrack. The theme song for the movie was a hit single, after all.

[Floogal]

The biggest problem with video game movies is that they're not miniseries instead.

More so than books, any video game with a plot worth speaking about has enough content that won't fit into a movie, even stripping away the gameplay filler. You'll also want some time setting up & explaining the game world, and have the main characters interact with each other more.

Earthbound would be delightful as a 7-12 episode animated series. The characters are blank-slate enough that the scriptwriter would have some leeway with their personalities, with plenty of suggestions from in-game situations (Ness's influence from the Mani Mani statue & relationship with Pokey/Porky, Paula's life as a psychic celebrity, Jeff being shipped off to a boarding school, Poo spending his whole life on serious monk training & then is a fish-out-of-water foreigner).

Final Fantasy 6 could have a fun adaptation, especially as it's a very character-focused game. Seeing how everyone individually deals with the major mid-game event is really good, but you need time to set everyone up beforehand, it couldn't fit into a movie.

Chrono Trigger would also be a fun romp, just have the main characters talk and discuss amongst themselves more. I would have Crono actually be mute (that alone would bring up themes to explore), and Ayla should probably have a bit of trouble dealing with civilisations so much more advanced than her own, but the others characters pretty much write themselves. And if it's a Netflix series, then the episodes could branch in a choose-your-own-adventure style, at least for the two-major plot decisions. And maybe a few of the game's alternate endings could be bonus episodes.



Hmm, looking over my examples, I think 16-bit era games are the best for adaptations? Meaty-enough plots that don't get too overly-long or complex, and there's enough glossing-over & fill-in-the-blanks with the presentation that the scriptwriters would have some flexibility without being massively "not canon."

[Darth Credence]

Floogal, I agree with you that most adaptations should be made as a TV type adaptation. I think there are plenty of newer games that it would work well for, too. Basically any RPG could be done. I could see Mass Effect working well as an ongoing TV show - they could either straight up adapt the story from the game, or they could just use the universe as it has been established.
I'd still kill for a good Fallout TV show, and I have absolutely no idea why it doesn't exist. Someone, please make a Fallout anthology! Give me a series like the Twilight Zone, where a Rod Serling type comes in, introduces the conceit of a given vault, and then we get an hour or so exploring what happens with it. Who wouldn't want to spend an hour watching the story of Vault 43 - 20 men, 10 women, and a panther?

[Brother Oni]

The biggest problem with video game movies is that they're not miniseries instead.

There's a number of shows that are either lifted directly from a game (e.g. Persona 5), inspired by a game (e.g. Kantai Collection) or have a video game as integral to the setting (e.g. .hack, Sword Art Online franchise, Overlord, Log Horizon).

On the fan side, I believe there are edits of the Mass Effect games into a series.

[Vinyadan]

There's also an aggressively bad miniseries after Alien: Isolation. It adds very little to the game, except for horrid lip-synch.

[Willie the Duck]

There's a number of shows that are either lifted directly from a game (e.g. Persona 5), inspired by a game (e.g. Kantai Collection) or have a video game as integral to the setting (e.g. .hack, Sword Art Online franchise, Overlord, Log Horizon).

On the fan side, I believe there are edits of the Mass Effect games into a series.

And I'm guessing they have a better track record for being-- I guess the threshold we're looking at is 'not-bad' based on the thread topic-- than Video Game Movies?

[The Patterner]

As everone and their grandma has said there are several reasons why video games often don't work out, however, there is one movie that I really liked that was based on a video game.

Resident Evil. The first one.

It's a solid Zombie action movie, and unless you hate the idea of that it's very entertaining.

[Gnoman]

Resident Evil is a tolerable movie in a vacuum. It is a terrible adaptation of the game. This is particularly egregious because the game itself is the very essence of classic B-movies, and turning it into a passable film should have been trivial. If anything, they put too much effort into it, which is a very strange concept.

[Traab]

Most decent RPGS would make for a solid multi season show like GoT because they have a lot of story to them, and plenty of room to pad things out. Take Final fantasy 7 as just one example. That story had so many twists in it you could probably end like 5 seasons on a cliffhanger. It has tons of action that steadily ramps up along with the drama, a large cast, but not too large, of colorful characters on all sides of the divide. Romance, murder, revenge, mystery, humor, magic, it has it all.

In all honesty, I want legend of legia to be a series. Its a lesser known rpg but the world history behind it and the entire storyline is just incredible. Think of it like the walking dead... if it was possible to cure the zombies area by area. And magic was real, and there was a big bad guy behind everything. So very little like walking dead I guess, aside from angry zombie like creatures that used to be human. Again, plenty of twists, plenty of action, mystery, a little romance would be easily fit, more revenge, a whole new world to build with a fascinating backstory that could be uncovered over time, its a lot of fun.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I thought the remake of Jumanji was a decent video game movie. I'm pretty sure there's another one in a similar vein I enjoyed as well, but for some reason I can't think of it at the moment.

Or, are we talking exclusively about video game franchises reimagined as movies?

In regards to the first Resident Evil, isn't that the movie where about half the cast is killed in a laser room in one scene? I also remember a very silly sequence with some action-heroing kick of a dog. Not that I can't enjoy some moments like that, but the tone of such blatantly silly antics needs to be humorous instead of dramatic.

Super Mario Brothers was a weird movie and I do think the two they got for Mario and Luigi were fine, but I recall at the time being confused why it wasn't the TV Mario and Luigi.

In terms of RPGs, I think it would be hard to make a movie out of any of them, since RPGs by their nature have many, many sequences of conflict building up, a climax and resolution. Pretty much every dungeon a player visits throughout the gameplay undergoes this sequence and players get to know the characters in the game through many, many repetitions of that particular sequence. A movie could only do a few and probably most audience members would have different favorite moments they'd hope to see.

As far as RPGs go, I'd nominate Dragon Quest 8 before anything else. Sure, I like a lot of other classic stuff, but there's just something special about the Trode-Yangus dynamic.

[Raimun]

There's only one reason why most video game movies are pretty bad: Most of the time, the people who make these movies aren't even trying to make these movies good or able to make them good.

They give these movies to inexperienced directors or people like Uwe Boll. They just hope a well known name of a video game brand is enough to sell tickets. They go with bland actors or actors who aren't motivated to give non-bland performances. They ignore the things that made a given video game's story memorable and alter things to be unrecognizable and bland: if something "roars" in the game, it will only "whimper" in the movie based on that game.

Basically, the people who make video game movies should have as much confidence and ability as the people who make superhero movies. They are doing okay. Some of my favorite movies are superhero movies but I couldn't put a video game movie in my top-50 movies... maybe in top-100 but even that's doubtful.

I think there's only one video game movie that is any good: Hitman (2007).
It's a faithful to the games: Agent 47 works as an international assassin. He uses creative ways to kill his victims. He uses disguises. He looks exactly like the character from the video game.
It's also a solid action movie with good action scenes. The assassin business makes it kind of fresh. There aren't that many action movies about assassins. You know, actual stealthy assassins and not hired killers who are introduced as "assassins" but then just mow down people in plain sight like John Matrix from Commando.

Edit: Oh, and The Witcher-series is not based on a video game. The Witcher was a series of books long before it was made into a trilogy of games. Also, the plot of the series is diretly adapted from the books.
Witcher just has literally had the best luck when it comes to licenced video games: they got it right at the first try. That's right. Witcher is a Licenced Game.

[Traab]

There is also one other downside to a video game movie. The plot. You cant really have an awe inspiring twist because the general plot is already known. Like, the resident evil movies had some twists, but that only happened because they were only vaguely connected to the video game universe for the most part. But very few people are going to be honestly shocked at the big reveal about cloud in a final fantasy movie because they either already played the game, or the general storyline is fairly well known. On the other hand, books turned into movies can do just fine, lotr was huge even though we all knew gollum was destined to sit on the iron throne to reestablish crystal tokyo going into it. I do feel the biggest issue is its usually a lazy cash grab where they slap the famous name on a lame movie done with minimal effort to maximize profits with no care about protecting the brand.

That being said, im sure its a matter of time before someone pulls it off and kick starts the genre. Similar to how for the longest time, nobody took the idea of superhero movies seriously. Sure batman had a couple big hits, but they had several steaming flops too, but eventually marvel started hitting it out of the park and that triggered the avengers universe. Somebody with a passion for games is going to go all ryan reynolds in deadpool on the subject and make a huge hit world wide showing directors and producers what works in the genre and how it can be done with a nearly limitless supply of concepts considering how many games there are right now.

[Peelee]

There is also one other downside to a video game movie. The plot. You cant really have an awe inspiring twist because the general plot is already known.

Most of the best movies don't have twists. Jaws, raiders if the Lost Ark, Star Wars/A New Hope, Rocky, Back to the Future, etc etc. They're all pretty straightforward. And movies based on books can still. l be excellent, despite the general plot already be NG known, like The Lord of the Rings, or Jurassic Park, or Shawshank Redemption/anything done by Steven King really, or Harry Potter (according to the internet), etc etc. Those books are by some of the most read authors in the last 50 years, so a good amount of people will gave read the books before seeing the movie.

tl;dr - you can know all about the plot and the movie and still blow you away. I contest that the plot being known us a significant issue with video game movies.

[tomandtish]

If you are trying to make a successful video game move (or a book/comic book/etc. movie), then you have to make it have mass appeal outside the niche of fans already aware of it. Comics are the obvious example here. Superman is the current record holder for most comics sold at @600 million. But since there's been over 800 issues, that's about 750,000 sold for each issue. Marvel movies blow that away opening weekend. A ton of that is due to people who aren't comic fans going to the movies.

Heck, even if we take "The Death of Superman" which was his single highest selling comic (at 6 million sold), that still doesn't match a Marvel opening weekend.

There hasn't been a video game movie that had that breakout appeal.

[Peelee]

If you are trying to make a successful video game move (or a book/comic book/etc. movie), then you have to make it have mass appeal outside the niche of fans already aware of it. Comics are the obvious example here. Superman is the current record holder for most comics sold at @600 million. But since there's been over 800 issues, that's about 750,000 sold for each issue. Marvel movies blow that away opening weekend. A ton of that is due to people who aren't comic fans going to the movies.

Heck, even if we take "The Death of Superman" which was his single highest selling comic (at 6 million sold), that still doesn't match a Marvel opening weekend.

There hasn't been a video game movie that had that breakout appeal.

There hadn't been a comic book movie that had that breakout appeal. Until there was.

Comic book movies before Iron Man were something else, don't forget.

[tomandtish]

There hadn't been a comic book movie that had that breakout appeal. Until there was.

Comic book movies before Iron Man were something else, don't forget.

Exactly. With the probable exception of Superman 1 and 2, and maybe a batman or 2, comic movies did not really attact that mainstream attention until Iron Man.

And there hasn't really been a video game movie that's come close. Someone will have to figure out that mainstream appeal for Pacman the Movie. :smallbiggrin:

[Kato]

The comparison between comic and video game movies is lacking, imo. There have been sufficiently successful comic movies for decades, be it Superman, Batman, or I'd argue even Hulk or Fantastic Four (I'm saying successful, not good) yes, the huge impact is only since the MCU but they have always been there.
Video game movies are mostly few and far between and the probably most successful is Resident Evil (which has 5 (five!) theatrical release sequels, holy ****, what world do we live in?)

Of course love and care for movie making matters in this, but assuming most game movies are made by people who don't care might be true for some but it can't be for all, e.g. I'm quite convinced a lot of effort was put into Spirits Within but it failed or was received lukewarm at best.
I think I agree with the idea that the story is the important bit. Many games don't have a (strong) plot, and those who have don't have movies, in general. It's basically impossible to make a movie from most Mario games because they focus on game play, not story. (imagine a Mario Maker game: a bunch of jigsaw level psychopaths making stages and hundreds of masochists killing themselves over and over)
Comics do have a story that's more or less easy to adapt but most game movies need a solid script of their own.
I could speculate why RE was a success but it would be mostly speculation. Advent Children is another kind of curious case, which is sufficiently liked by fans because it was made with enough love, but it is pretty much only enjoyable by fans because it so heavily relies on the lore of the game.

[snowblizz]

Recently saw Rampage: Big Meets Bigger on tv and as action movies go it was quite decent.

Book adaptations are quite hit and miss too (YA novel adaptations am looking at you), video games are no different really. We see more failed game adaptions because Uwe Boll (sp?) deliberedly (it has to be) tanks so many.

I've not seen Assassins Creed nor World of Warcraft, those would be interesting datapoints as genuine attempts. The lack of mention since release suggest they weren't that big hits.

In general though video game movies have been really really bad.

The people mentioning various fault points are IMO closest to the truth though each "failed"* adaptation probably did so based on it's own merits. I.e. we can't generally blame one reason why video game adaptations fail. It's quite possible to fail by sticking too close to the video game concept and by not sticking close enough to it. If you really want to bomb, manage both simultaneously.



*admittedly that's a subjective call

[Rynjin]

My biggest annoyance with video game movies is when a company is handed what should be a slam dunk property and still manages to fumble the ball.
I can get that it would be hard to make a Warcraft movie, as an example, since it's a very dense property to try and adapt to the screen, and a lot of budget needs to go to the CGI department.

But it absolutely boggles my MIND that there have been not one but TWO different attempts at making a Hitman movie, and they both flopped (deservedly).

And they were released at pretty much the perfect time as well; two points in time where spy action thriller type stuff was VERY popular and en vogue.

How hard is it to make a movie with the basic premise that there's a bald guy with a barcode on his head that is the world's premier hitman? This is a movie that's been successfully made dozens of times by different studios, they just needed to do it again with the serial numbers printed on.

Just make it a movie that is clearly meant to be a series of movies like The Transporter or something. One job is one movie; no grand overarching narrative, just "this heavily guarded dude needs to die because reasons" and action ensues.

It's easy, how did they fail TWICE?

[Eldan]

Book adaptations are quite hit and miss too (YA novel adaptations am looking at you), video games are no different really. We see more failed game adaptions because Uwe Boll (sp?) deliberedly (it has to be) tanks so many.

I don't think Boll's movies are intentionally tanked, really. I've seen relatively candid interviews with the man, both in English and German, and he actually seems to enjoy his own work in a cheesy way.

What they are is... well, they are extremely low budget and low effort, because they are not made to appeal to an audience or make any money. Most of them apparently abused some German tax loophole to get their money back if they lost any, so they were just slapped together out of scenes Boll thought were cool vaguely connected by bad scripts and no-budget effects.

[Glorthindel]

My biggest annoyance with video game movies is when a company is handed what should be a slam dunk property and still manages to fumble the ball.
I can get that it would be hard to make a Warcraft movie, as an example, since it's a very dense property to try and adapt to the screen, and a lot of budget needs to go to the CGI department.

But it absolutely boggles my MIND that there have been not one but TWO different attempts at making a Hitman movie, and they both flopped (deservedly).

And they were released at pretty much the perfect time as well; two points in time where spy action thriller type stuff was VERY popular and en vogue.

How hard is it to make a movie with the basic premise that there's a bald guy with a barcode on his head that is the world's premier hitman? This is a movie that's been successfully made dozens of times by different studios, they just needed to do it again with the serial numbers printed on.

Just make it a movie that is clearly meant to be a series of movies like The Transporter or something. One job is one movie; no grand overarching narrative, just "this heavily guarded dude needs to die because reasons" and action ensues.

It's easy, how did they fail TWICE?

I was always a little perplexed with Hitman - I actually found it reasonably solid, but was a bit worried when I saw scenes that were literally re-used scenes from Dark Angel (I mean, you even see clearly in one shot the child that played young Jessica Alba). I mean, how expensive can it be to shoot a room of shaven-headed children being trained in martial arts).

I think it doesn't help that the video-game movie carries a stigma, that probably causes them to underperform. Both Hitman and Max Payne were perfectly fine movies, had known, competant actors, didn't do anything likely to offend fans, and were not incomprehensible to the non-fan, but both sank with little comment.

[snowblizz]

I don't think Boll's movies are intentionally tanked, really. I've seen relatively candid interviews with the man, both in English and German, and he actually seems to enjoy his own work in a cheesy way.

What they are is... well, they are extremely low budget and low effort, because they are not made to appeal to an audience or make any money. Most of them apparently abused some German tax loophole to get their money back if they lost any, so they were just slapped together out of scenes Boll thought were cool vaguely connected by bad scripts and no-budget effects.

And that's why I say it is intentional they are tanked. He is not really trying to make a movie he is making a German taxdodge-thingy.

As a comparison I kinda like the Sharknado movies. They are all kinds of terrible, but through it all you can tell those invovled wewnt "OMG! We are making a movie here, how awesome is that?".

When I still actively played Warhammer and Warhammer 40k the fans would always talk about a movie or something. Most of us knew it would likely be a disasterous attempt. It seems the company realised the same because some small attempts were started but it was never followed through on. It is just not enough to have piles of material to mine or to be superficially competent at your job, you have to be able to capture the essence of it. Marvel maanged to it right, DC seems to have taken an opposite tack.

[Eldan]

And that's why I say it is intentional they are tanked. He is not really trying to make a movie he is making a German taxdodge-thingy.

As a comparison I kinda like the Sharknado movies. They are all kinds of terrible, but through it all you can tell those invovled wewnt "OMG! We are making a movie here, how awesome is that?".

When I still actively played Warhammer and Warhammer 40k the fans would always talk about a movie or something. Most of us knew it would likely be a disasterous attempt. It seems the company realised the same because some small attempts were started but it was never followed through on. It is just not enough to have piles of material to mine or to be superficially competent at your job, you have to be able to capture the essence of it. Marvel maanged to it right, DC seems to have taken an opposite tack.

Warhammer has the problem that there isn't really one main storyline. 40k, you can at least say that almost everyone has some variety of space marine, so make a movie about those, but even then, there's no main story to 40k. Everyone has "their guys". Unless you tried to make a Horus Heresy tv series. You'd have to pick one story out of many and film that. Like Eisenhorn seems to be diong.

It's also why I don't think you can make a Dungeons and Dragons movie, only even more so. There's not even one set D&D world. You could make a Driz'zt movie, maybe a Forgotten Realms or Eberron movie, but they wouldn't encompass all of D&D.

[Azuresun]

As everone and their grandma has said there are several reasons why video games often don't work out, however, there is one movie that I really liked that was based on a video game.

Resident Evil. The first one.

It's a solid Zombie action movie, and unless you hate the idea of that it's very entertaining.

It also has an absolutely hilarious cast commentary on the DVD. It almost comes across as the actors and director poking fun at their own movie.

I'll also nominate DOA: Dead or Alive. You can tell that they really studied the games and the reason people liked them, and then captured that core appeal. :smallbiggrin:

[JoshL]

As far as RPGs go, I'd nominate Dragon Quest 8 before anything else. Sure, I like a lot of other classic stuff, but there's just something special about the Trode-Yangus dynamic.

This is my favorite Dragon Quest so I would 100% be on board with that. They just released a movie (theatrical in Japan, direct to Netflix in the US) that's based sort of on 5 and I enjoyed it, but a proper telling of 8 would be great!

[Wardog]

This is my coming out: from time to time I enjoy a rewatch of Doom (2005).
It is my most secret dirty pleasure.

A movie with 19/100 on Rotten Tomatoes and 34/100 on Metacritics, but I can't help but really love it ^^

At the time, I thought Doom was the best video-game movie I'd seen.

Which admittedly isn't a hight bar to cross. But IMO its a reasonable Aliens-style "space marines vs. creepy monsters in a poorly-lit base", and better at that than a lot of similar movies.


But my secret guilty pleasure is the Street Fighter movie, which I think is a genuinely fun film, and the cast clearly enjoyed making it. And it has some brilliantly quotable scenes.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Haven't seen a mention of Castlevania yet. While not a movie, it's a series on Netflix, and is actually really good. The second season is still at a stunning 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the most successful adaptation of a video game of all time.

[Kato]

Haven't seen a mention of Castlevania yet. While not a movie, it's a series on Netflix, and is actually really good. The second season is still at a stunning 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the most successful adaptation of a video game of all time.

Yes, but it's a series, and animated. So if we include those we have to give seniority to things like the better Sonic cartoons or Megaman which might not be quite as good /cinematic as Castlevania but good enough for their time. (of course none of them can hold a candle to the true pinnacle of video game cartoons that is the legend of Zelda series)