The video game industry is swiftly growing into one of the largest avenues of the overall entertainment sphere. With every passing year, video game sales are continuing to grow at an immense rate. Naturally, that spike has led to an increased number of movies that are based on video games as well. While video game adaptations on film and television are nothing new, they have never really exploded in popularity. At least, not nearly as much as one would expect with recognizable major names like Super Mario Bros. and Halo.
For years now, there has been a curse of sorts haunting the video game movie genre. Whether a film was based on family-friendly properties like Angry Birds or Ratchet and Clank, or if it was a more adult-skewing story like World of Warcraft or Hitman, it was seemingly impossible to make a video game movie that was both financially successful and well-regarded by audiences and critics. However, as of the last few years, things have started to look up for these kinds of video game adaptations. While there hasn’t been a real breakout hit from the genre yet, box office numbers and overall reception from audiences have been moving in the right direction. This begs the question: has the curse on video game movies finally been lifted?
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A Terrible History
Buena Vista Pictures
The first major live-action adaptation of a video game came in the early 1990s. That film, the Super Mario Bros. movie, was certainly not a great foot to start on. Though it certainly has its fans these days, the overall reception to the movie was that it was an utter disgrace to the Mario brand and might just be one of the worst films ever to be produced. There were a slew of other video game movies released throughout the ‘90s and 2000s, but things didn’t’ really get better throughout those decades. Movies like Mortal Kombat, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Street Fighter, and more came and went, with each of them consistently receiving less than stellar box office and critical results.
Some of these movies, chiefly 1995’s Mortal Kombat, have become cult-classics of sorts, but they have never found a long-lasting audience outside of the core group of hardcore fans dedicated to that brand. As the modern age of video games really began to get under way in the 2010s, there were plenty of films that attempted to capitalize on this. As video games regularly began to have much more involved and complex stories, one would imagine that it would become easier to make a solidly enjoyable movie based on one. However, the curse persisted. Despite movies like Prince of Persia, Warcraft, Assassin’s Creed, and more attempting to bring a newfound maturity and quality to the genre, each of them failed one after the other. Even with outstanding source material to pull from and a passionate existing fan base, movies like these still failed to get off the ground. It began to look like there may never be a genuinely great movie based on a video game, as every attempt would crash and burn nearly as badly as the one before it.
In this history largely defined by failure, one key asterisk to include is that, while none of them really blew up into massive hits, there were several series and franchises that did manage to continue beyond their initial film, at least for a little while. The biggest example is that of the Resident Evil films starring Milla Jovovich. After the decent success of the first film in 2002, there would be another five direct sequels and one semi-reboot produced, with the most recent having just released last year. While none of these films have scored higher than a 37% on RT, they managed to attract a decent audience that, while not massive, was sizable enough to turn a profit on the films with a low-to-medium budget. Other films like the Angelina Jolie-led Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Silent Hill, and Hitman also were able to justify a sequel, though they never made it to a third entry to round out the trilogy.
Things Are Getting Better
Warner Bros. Pictures
With all of that said though, the brutal past of the video game movie genre is beginning to fade away. The first film to earn over a 50% on Rotten Tomatoes was 2018’s reboot of Tomb Raider starring Alicia Vikander, which earned an impressive (for the genre) 52%. That was quickly followed up by the second film to do so just a month later, as the Dwayne Johnson Rampage film managed to get a whopping 51% rating. The first of the genre to actually get a “fresh” rating came a year later, as the live-action Pokémon film Detective Pikachu garnered a 68% approval score. That score was, once again, improved upon later in the year by, of all things, The Angry Birds Movie 2, which still holds the genre’s highest score (at least for major wide-release films) with a 72% rating. An impressive recent player in this ongoing upward trend is the Sonic the Hedgehog films, which have become some of the most successful children’s films of the last few years. The Tom Holland-led Uncharted film also managed to make a bit of a splash upon its release earlier this year.
In even better news for the gamers out there, while the general box office and critical reception to films based on video games has been slowly improving over the last five years or so, the real success of the genre has been found on television and streaming. The Halo series, which released earlier this year, found decent success streaming on Paramount+, and it holds a 70% rating on RT. Netflix, however, is the streamer able to boast the highest levels of success with their video game adaptations. Animated series like Dragon’s Dogma and especially Castlevania and Arcane have received immense interest and praise from general audiences and critics alike.
Then there’s also the case of Netflix’s live-action series based on The Witcher. While the series is not technically a video game adaptation, as it is based on the saga of books by the same name, the Witcher brand as a whole was significantly increased by the popularity of the video games. In particular, 2015’s The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt has become a classic of the modern age of video games. Netflix’s series based on The Witcher has capitalized on that newfound popularity of the brand, essentially making it a video game adaptation in the eyes of many. The series has become a staple of the Netflix catalog, with the Michelle Yeoh-led spin-off, The Witcher: Blood Origin, premiering at the end of this year and the third season of the core series set for 2023. With the recent news that the series’ star Henry Cavill is exiting the series after season three, with his replacement being The Hunger Games’ Liam Hemsworth, only time will tell if The Witcher will be able to continue its streaming success.
Looking to the Future
HBO
With the solid foundation for video game movies and series that has been laid over the last several years, the genre is in the best place now that it has ever been. Looking ahead, it seems that studios are going to try and strike while the iron is hot, potentially (finally) bringing the genre to the forefront of mainstream popularity that it has always had the potential to be at. There is a myriad of different live-action and animated video game adaptations soon to be released both in-theaters and streaming at home. Hopes are high that these new entries in the genre will be able to build on the success of the last few years.
Easily one of the most hotly anticipated of these new adaptations is HBO’s The Last of Us, which is set to premiere on Jan. 15th, 2023. It’s no secret that The Last of Us was one of the most successful games, both critically and financially, of the last decade. With the creative team from HBO’s Chernobyl behind this new series, in addition to a stellar cast that includes Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Nick Offerman, Storm Reid, Gabriel Luna, and more, expectations for this new show are very high. If The Last of Us is able to be as good as the call sheet and trailers make it out to be, it could easily set a new bar for the genre of video game adaptations.
Beyond The Last of Us, there is also a lot of interest in the new animated Super Mario Bros. movie coming from Illumination. A third Sonic the Hedgehog movie was announced shortly after the release of the second film this past spring, in addition to a spin-off series centered on Idris Elba’s Knuckles for Paramount+. 2021’s Mortal Kombat is also receiving a sequel, and there are new film adaptations of Gran Turismo, Borderlands, Five Nights at Freddy’s and Ghost of Tsushima in various stages of production or development as well. Looking back at where the genre of video game adaptations has been and comparing that to the trajectory it is currently on, it does appear that the “curse” has been, or is in the process of being, lifted. We’ll see if this oncoming tsunami of new video game adaptations is able to continue the hot streak the genre is on or not, but even regardless of that, the overall audience interest in these kinds of projects has increased substantially from where it once was. It’s only a matter of time before it really takes off.
