Look! It’s Snowing Gamer Movies!
I should begin, to be fair, with my immeasurable love for all things campy. I enjoy reading fantastic fan-fiction and I got just a little weepy during Sam Hart’s YouTube debut of Mario Kart Love Song. So it shouldn’t be a surprise when I say that I have yet to come across a game turned film franchise that I couldn’t get excited about.
Now don’t get me wrong; the excitement doesn’t always last. As an avid fan of Dark Angel I admit that the first three minutes of Xavier Gen’s Hitman had me out of my seat and on my way out to my car before the opening credits had even finished rolling. It took me a couple of tries over many years but at this point I have managed to sit through the entire movie. Once. I consider it a minor miracle. The same feeling can be turned towards movies like Max Payne and Resident Evil: Degeneration. While visually stimulating and semi-successful at the box office they were otherwise lacking in pizazz. Then there are movies that can only be described as pure, unadulterated, Fan Candy. I am talking about the greats of gaming/movie madness. Super Mario Brothers, Dead or Alive, Mortal Kombat, Wing Commander, these are movies that I can watch over and over again and infinitum until the day my brain melts and starts leaking out my ears.
Whether they were heart warming, rage inducing, or brain melting, in the past quarter of a century American Cinema has seen about 40 versions of game turned movie. That number includes a variety of things like game spin-offs, very loose adaptations, and straight up big screen copies. Some of them have been insane blockbusters (Tomb Raider, Resident Evil) some have been great fun but financially unsuccessful (In the Name of the King , Alone in the Dark) and most dwell in the misty grey world of fandom (BloodRayne). Now lets recap…40+ movies in 25+ years. So color me surprised when I discovered that there are at least 30 movies in the works to be released within the next few years. The rough math, for those of us who don’t like math, would be 30+ movies in 3+ years.
With these overwhelming numbers the question begs: Will it be too much?
With titles like BioShock, Resident Evil 4, God of War, and another Mortal Kombat (with Lambert!!!!!) as just a few of the movies soon to hit the Silver Screen do we even care? Given that movies based on games are rarely successful I find myself wondering why Hollywood thinks there is going to be a change in that trend. Do they know something we don’t? Have they kidnapped Theresa, every hero’s favorite sister, and forced her to rat out the blockbusters of the future? Maybe the executives finally got their hand’s on a decent 8-ball
All in all it looks as though we gamers are going to have a few good years of fan candy ahead of us. With so much looming over the horizon, the anticipation may just kill me.
I would love to see a fallout 3 movie… btw, great job on this article. Very well written.
Ohhh a movie from the Fallout universe……that would be fan-freaking-tastic!
Nice article!
Usually I’m not a huge fan of the game-turned movie, except I actually did like the Doom movie (even though everyone makes fun of me for it!
Don’t feel bad, I like Doom too. Who wouldn’t love a movie with Karl Urban, Rosamund Pike, and The Rock? The director even managed to get in the actual game style towards the end. It was a fun time all around.
It would be nice if Hollywood could reach back and take one more swing at doing a descent Street Fighter movie with live actors or forever pass it off to Manga. The short scene you can find where Jackie Chan plays some of these characters is funny.
I agree that the Tomb Raider and Resident Evil movies are enjoyable and on the opposite side, through the friends network, they stopped me from watching Alone in the Dark…..a memory I dont need to regret as I still hold the memory of their first game, and how innovative it was.
Thank you for this article, this subject needs to be brought out. I am looking forward to those 30+ movies…crossing my fingers for pure entertainment. =)
awww come on, Alone in the Dark wasn’t that bad (my brain only melted a little). Stephen Dorff was good and it had Christian Slater which is always a good thing. There have totally been worse movies made, really, I swear…..ummm I will think of one eventually…
AND one of the movies coming out is Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0891592/) so start getting excitied!
I am not a fan of games turned into movies except for a couple here and there.
The article was an excellent read none the less. Captures the past/present and what to expect [or not to]. Good objective analysis of the trend.
I never was a fan of movies based on games but the way you describe them..I might convert
Great article! Looking forward to more!
This article was extremely well written, encompassing both the good and bad of the games turned movies. While I am not a fan of some of the games to movies, some of them do have great substance and can easily be enticing to the regular movie goer without necessarily having played the game, tho those are few and far between. My best friend is especially taken with the Resident Evil saga and she has now fully turned me into an addict as well. Great article.
It’s always nice to meet another addict.
I can’t wait for the next Resident Evil move, though lets hope that Ms. Jovovich takes a stand against the pointless airbrushing this time around. 
Welcome to the blog!
I think the real problem with most game movies is that the filmmakers don’t seem to feel that it’s important to actually play video games. Sometimes, the “artistic direction” just seems to make zero sense to anyone who’s ever played the game (cough cough, Max Payne).
On an amusing note, I actually liked Hitman. Don’t ask why.
Thanks! grrr as for Hitman if that whole Dark Angel thing hadn’t gone down I probably would have liked it as well. We should do a whole separate article about how evil Gens is for thinking no one would notice.
I have to say, I saw the trailer for the MegaMan movie and it just looks ridiculous: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4cSNN7B1nc (This is the real trailer of the fanmade movie coming out)
Man me wonder if the Metroid Prime movie will be similar… Let’s hope someone in the big leagues picks this up.
I can honestly say I am curious as to what they are going to do with our beloved games we’ve grown to love… I still can’t get over how ugly Koopas were in the Mario Bros. movie. D: I still don’t understand that movie.
Wow. I finally watched that trailer. just….wow. Good job NeoRyo on finding a trailer for the first gamer movie I have no desire to ever watch.
Oddly enough I spent the weekend defending Super Mario Bros. (the movie) against the attack of my clan. To sum: I was excited that the little known Princess Daisy got to make a feature appearance. I loved that it was the introduction of the last name Mario. “Hi! I’m Mario Mario and this is Luigi Mario!” Otherwise the movie is a horrible break from cannon and even the Mario Bros. timeline is ashamed of it. Bob Hoskins says it was the worst film he was ever apart of and even Leguizamo is a little ashamed of it and that film was his big Hollywood break. I loved it in 1993 and I love it toady. Odds are I am going to love it in 2050. BUT I wouldn’t worry about not understanding it since even I can admit that it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Apoco si van a sacar una pelicula del Fallout????
Games are meant to be played not sat thru….
That said… there has been as previously stated good movies about games including Doom (i got ur back)and resident evil, but mostly they serve as really cool coasters…
Why videogames do you ask? why not… is not really surprising… NOT REALLY, this has been done for quite some time, borrowing from real life situations, from plays books and novels.. then Hollywood, apparently run out of ideas and starting remaking movies and then turning videogames into movies, I mean is quite all right with me, its just part of the natural path for movies, and with the “shotgun approach” I think, strictly statistically speaking we will be seeing more good movies in the genre… and yeah… waaaay more crappy movies as well
xoxo (heheh) IM THE BONUS
Coasters?!?!?!? Blasfemador! Tu es loco!
On Fallout there hasn’t been any word on that as a movie…..but it would be nice.
Of the 30+ I anticipate 4 blockbusters. If they are lucky.
I have to say I’m with Risky on this one. Even though I’m a huge Deadwood fan and loved Timothy Olyphant’s acting, it has nothing to do with why I enjoyed Hitman. As one of my mates mentioned the other night, people that have played the Hitman game disliked the movie, however those of us that didn’t play it most likely enjoyed the movie. You left within 3mins though. You didn’t even give the movie the slightest chance, since you state you were out of there during credits. On the basis of that, I don’t think you can really judge the movie since you haven’t seen it at all.
There are a lot of aspects we need to consider when talking about such a broad topic, which haven’t been covered. I believe we(gamers) do strongly care when such huge titles such as BioShock and Halo are made into a movie. It would be foolish for anyone to criticize the movie regarding the parts they left out since movies can’t cover every aspect of the story within a short period. We spend hours playing the campaign for these games and people expect it all to be covered within an hour and a half, which is not possible. Even with LOTR being as long as it is, characters were left out such as Tom Bombadil. People that have read the books would know, he did have a large part in The Fellowship. It’s not a game turned movie, but it’s a great example on how even a long movie has to make sacrifices.
As gamers, we get a huge selection of releases of games every few months. I think it’s our nature to judge so harshly. We use this same mechanism when we’re comparing games to other games as well as things just like this, games to movies. We are being too harsh IMO and have really high expectations.
BioShock is being produced by Gore Verbinski. He’s had hits such as The Ring and Pirates of the Caribbean. Halo is being produced by Peter Jackson. Those are two great producers that undoubtedly settle for nothing but the very best when they’re working on their movies. We also have not considered the improvement of technology, genre and consoles these game turned movies are/were for. So overall, there is so much that wasn’t considered.
I think perhaps we have a bit of a misunderstanding.
I did watch Hitman. I have watched the entire thing. Barring my issues with the borrowing (wether legal or not) of footage from Cameron’s Dark Angel it was an acceptable film. It wasn’t fantastic but it wasn’t awful.
I do agree with you regarding the idea that Gamers as a whole as expecially critical of games that are turned into movies. They want perfection. I can understand why. After spending over 100 hours with Fallout 3 alone I would be very critical of any movie based on Fallout. We are the experts in our fields and we get a little touchy when non gamers waltz in and do things without realizing that the “audience” will notice and care. But that is a topic for another day. I could certainly do my masters on the history and current trends of the video game and movie industry but in the interest of not boring the girlsandgaming readership to death I figured I should keep it simple.
See, I played the games, and I loved them. I also liked the movie, but it was just for completely different reasons. The game was good because it was clever and pretty damn think-y for a shooter. The movie was good because the acting was sharp, and there were just some priceless lines…”Stop talking or I’ll put you back in the trunk” = emminently quotable.
I’m not sure what to expect with BioShock. Improved tech is a nice thing, but it can be totally misused. After all, I wish I’d left Max Payne after 3 minutes. That butcher job made me weep inside.
At risk of outing myself, they guy playing Hitman was just too cute for the role… there… Agent 47 was one cold SOB and the actor who gave life to it, just didn’t inspire that, I was always expecting, for him to crack a joke or something … I think in a effort to broaden the target audience ( and yes im talking to you girls) they casted that guy, aside of that the movie was good, good old action movie and well the Russian girl
lets leave it at that.
So who is going to play master chief?
Those are big shoes to fill, and ill beet my last dollar that whoever plays master chief, its not going to be enough, came on, who is going to be able to save the wold 3 times in a row, kill the bad aliens and get the chick, because trust me it will be damsel in distress.
So i guess the main problem with these “horde” of videogame movies its going to be who gets to play the characters, not so much the adaptation or if they left some forest troll and her super hot wife out of the movie
here is what i mean.
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTUyMTg0MTY0OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTc2MjAyMg@@._V1._SX369_SY400_.jpg
Dragon Ball’s Goku… i was a fan of the cartoon growing up… and they you slap me with this… Well at least Shia LaBeouf is not playing the role
Side note: one series I wish they’d make into movies is the Fatal Frame series. I think they’d all do smashing jobs as J-Horror movies, especially the second game.
Good article.. although I am very skeptical of vidoe games that get turned into movies.. as you mentioned there are good ones and then again they come out with garbage movies like Doom! YUCK!
They sooo need to come out with a Halo movie! And in my opinion the best videogame to movie was Spiderman
you mean comic made movie right?
of all the crappy game movies you like, you didn’t make it through the first 3 minutes of Hitman? that’s actually a good movie, but i am rather partial to timothy olyphant and i never really got passed the first level of any Hitman game (too much sneaking around lol).
Game-turned-movies would be so much better w/o a certain individual known as Uwe Boll.
In other news, someone needs to do make a good Street Fighter movie for once. Even the anime of SF4 wasn’t all too fantastic, and Legend of Chun-Li… well… let’s not go thr.
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