Gitting Gud
For years, the term “video game adaptation” was shorthand for “shoddily executed, badly written, terrible movie”. Hollywood has been trying to adapt some of gaming’s best franchises into blockbuster movies for quite some time. But all they’ve done is sully the reputation of the franchises in question and the term “video game adaptation”
Most of the adaptations had been critical and financial failures. So, Hollywood had been avoiding video game adaptations for some time. Most of them were busy trying (and miserably failing) to create the next MCU. But something’s changed. Hollywood seems to have discovered its appetite for video game adaptations. What’s the reason?
To use a phrase famous among gamers, video game adaptations have been “gitting gud“.
A History Lesson
But first, a brief history lesson.
Since the dawn of the video game industry, Hollywood execs have been trying to make celluloid money spinners out of video game properties. They’ve seen the success of these video games and making movies out of them could entice fans and rake in money. At least that was the idea.
Trouble was, at least in my opinion, these video game adaptations were beset by several factors. Greedy studio execs that assumed fans would flock to see these movies, regardless of quality. Writers who never understood or even hated the property, which in turn lent to crappy scripts. Too many cooks meddling with the broth, leading to weird design decisions (What were those Koopas in the 1993 Mario Bros movie?).
There’s also the fact that some games don’t exactly lend themselves to a movie format. Take Hitman, for example. The games have been about an emotionless assassin, Agent 47, executing his target in myriad ways. There is a plot involving some secret groups, but the story has never mattered in a Hitman game. 47 isn’t an interesting or charming character to base a movie around. Hitman’s world-building has always been perfunctory at best. So trying to make a movie out of that is a fool’s errand.
Sure, there was the odd success like Paul W.S. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat, the first Tomb Raider movie starring Angelina Jolie, and the first Resident Evil movie. But for every success, there were innumerable failures like Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, The 1993 Super Mario Bros movie, Double Dragon, Street Fighter, Max Payne, and Uwe Boll’s entire filmography. Some of them were considered as “so bad, they’re good”, Street Fighter especially with a manic performance by the late Raul Julia.
The Rise of the Video Game Adaptation
It came to a point where the term “video game adaptation” was immediately looked upon with suspicion and derision. Even high-profile adaptations like Michael Fassbender’s Assassin’s Creed and Duncan Jones’s Warcraft weren’t safe from the curse.
By the time those movies released, Hollywood studios were already looking to the money-making juggernaut that is the MCU and started to release their attempts at a cinematic franchise. While this was happening, Netflix quietly released an animated series called “Castlevania” based on the Konami property of the same name. While critics and audiences weren’t smitten with the first season, it did decently enough to warrant a second season. The second season was a critical hit and the audience lapped it up, earning it a 3rd and 4th season. Castlevania became a moderate success for the streaming giant.
The coming years also saw the release of Dwayne Johnson’s “Rampage” based on the popular arcade game and “Pokemon: Detective Pikachu” based on the iconic Pokemon franchise. While these movies weren’t warmly received by critics, they weren’t trashed to oblivion as is the case with video game adaptations. The audience liked these movies and they made bank for the studios bankrolling these movies.
Going Full Steam
2020 saw the release of “Sonic The Hedgehog”. Besides the diehard fans, no one expected this movie to do well. The franchise hadn’t produced a good game in a while and the first trailer didn’t do this adaptation any favors. But against all odds, the film was a success raking in a good deal of cash and even warranting a successful sequel with a third movie on its way.
While Sony’s Uncharted didn’t do well with critics, audiences liked it enough to make it a modest success. On the TV side, Netflix saw a winning strategy with their animated adaptations of video games and was pumping out critical and commercial darlings like Arcane and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
2022 saw the release of HBO’s “The Last of Us”. Based on the critically acclaimed game of the same name, it was a gargantuan success among critics and the audience. After years, critics proclaimed that the video game curse was lifted, which felt a bit weird considering that the movies listed above were financial successes and did well among critics.
What Changed for the Video Game Adaptation?
I can think of a few.
Video game companies now have more input into how their properties are handled by movie studios. This ensures that the adaptation, if not great, will at least be of decent quality and will follow the rules set up by the video game. This isn’t a sure-fire thing, mind you. Ubisoft was involved in Assassin’s Creed and that movie still bored the bejeesus out of everyone. But at least, you won’t get monsters that give you waking nightmares (Looking at you, 1993 Super Mario Bros movie)
Another mistake these adaptations make is writing. Previous video game adaptations had non-existing writing or writing that existed on sufferance. The current crop of movies and series may not boast the writing chops of Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann (The Last of Us), but they are way, way better than the dreck that we were subjected to. A fully realized world, fleshed-out characters and well-written stakes were things we only dreamt of in video game adaptations. Now it’s a reality.
A classic mistake of video game adaptations of yore? Either they try to fit an entire game’s worth of story in a single movie or if the video game in question has a very simple story, they don’t bother fleshing out that story.
TV solves this problem. And not telling the story from the game also solves the problem.
Castlevania did a tremendous job of expanding the third game’s story over 8 episodes and also fleshed out Alucard, Trevor and Sypha while bolstering the writing of characters like Isaac and Hector. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners told a different story from the game which gave the team at Studio Trigger the creative freedom to go crazy with the story and animation.
What’s Next for the Video Game Adaptation?
The Super Mario Bros movie seems to be doing gangbusters. Netflix’s Castlevania is getting a sequel. HBO’s The Last of Us got a second season greenlit. Amazon’s going ahead with a God of War series and they’re taking a crack at the Tomb Raider franchise (Seriously, how many attempts?). Sonic The Hedgehog’s getting a third movie. John Wick’s Chad Stahelski is roped in for a Ghost of Tsushima movie. There’s a Twisted Metal movie in the works of all things!
Just like the superhero movies of years past, it seems like video game adaptations have learned from the mistakes of the past and are moving forward with a confidence unseen as of yet. Whether this successful streak will continue remains to be seen.