Successful Game-to-Film Adaptations: Hollywood’s Surprising Hits and Misses

black dslr camera taking photo of city lights
Photo by Jesus Loves Austin

Adapting games for film in Hollywood is very difficult. The biggest problem is the box office. Even with a meager budget, game adaptations manage to fail miserably, and the same goes for expensive projects, only they fail even more miserably. Secondly, the quality of the material. It turned out that it is not so easy to make a film with a game basis.

Usually, the most spectacular games are chosen to make equally epic films. Or they also like to bring to life films about sporting events, since sports are loved all over the world. The most spectacular and widespread sport is football and its popularity is also reflected in films and games, such as the FIFA game. The game has millions of fans who would be interested to see the creation of the game itself on their screens since they spend a lot of time in it, buy fc 24 coins, and fight in virtual competitions.

But today we’ll talk about ready-made films based on famous games, which turned out good.

Warcraft

If there was a movie in 2016 that made audiences break a bunch of copies, it was undoubtedly the film adaptation of the game series about the battle between humans and orcs – Warcraft. On the one hand, there an extremely realistic pictures, titles, names, and events that caress the player’s ears, on the other hand, there is nothing for an outsider to do here, since you don’t want to empathize with scary and not very kind orcs, and you can’t moral considerations. Although the film has a poor rating on Metacritic, this is one of the leaders at our top.

Uncharted: Not on the maps

Has Hollywood finally learned how to make passable game adaptations? Even though there have recently been failures akin to “Resident Evil: Raccoon City,” overall it’s not that bad. “Mortal Kombat” may have been a joke, but it had some cool stuff and overall the adaptation didn’t look flawed. Uncharted was postponed with enviable regularity, but in the end, the film even received very high ratings from the audience (although critics once again crushed it), which with this result automatically makes it a representative of the best game adaptations. Well, since the genre is an action-adventure, and the plot is centered on a treasure hunt, the picture should be doubly praised, since in such a genre it is very difficult to come up with something worthwhile.

Resident Evil

Oh, how everyone was indignant at the pre-production and production stages. And the incomprehensible Alice, who is not in the game, became the main one! And the inarticulate Paul Anderson replaced George Romero himself! And probably something else that we have forgotten a little over the years. However, Anderson managed to create an atmosphere of claustrophobic horror in the cold, mirrored walls of the underground laboratory, so that during Alice’s final exit to the surface you feel the fresh air.

Pokemon: Detective Pikachu

Film adaptations of computer games do not bode well. Hollywood has been desperately trying to launch some kind of film series based on games since the 90s, but everything always turned out terrible and also failed at the box office. But recently the situation has begun to improve slightly. Among the recent ones, “Sonic at the Movies”, “Uncharted: Not on the Cards”, and “Mortal Kombat” were collected well, and the audience more or less liked them. Pokemon didn’t seem like the kind of game-based movie that would be a box-office success. Although this universe has an impressive fan base, with a budget of $150 million, it was worth playing with not the most popular brand, but partly based on quality. Pokemon turned out to be a relatively good film and, in comparison with other game adaptations, is at the top.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Perhaps everything would have been better if the director had cast someone less refined than Jake Gyllenhaal in the role of Dastan, a prince who rose from the bottom and stole from merchants. This is, perhaps, a rare case when the script manages to balance recognizable elements of the game and dramatic authenticity.

Sonic in the movies

At least several times a year, Hollywood studios decide to try their luck and release a film adaptation of some mega-popular game in the past. Such attempts always do not end very well, and most often lead not only to complete failure in terms of grades but also terms of fees. During the release of the first trailer, everyone called Sonic the Hedgehog another failure, where the main advantage was the new creepy design. As a result, Paramount moved the film and hit a real jackpot of 320 million for 2020. Sonic not only collected well but was also rated well enough so that compared to other flawed film adaptations, it looks like a contender for the place of one of the best game films.

In conclusion, the journey of adapting video games into films has been a tumultuous one in Hollywood. Despite numerous failures and challenges, some movies managed to captivate audiences and earn both critical acclaim and box office success. These standout films prove that with the right approach, it is possible to bridge the gap between gaming and cinematic experiences.

Derek Knightly
Derek Knightly
Co-creator of the website Tonights.TV. Who lives and breathes the world of movies and television.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here