The growing appeal for Video Game adaptations and how they went from a mess and curse to improving and being faithful
(We talking on adaptations today, the good the bad and the unsettling)
Ah the medium of video games, a common area that I tend to love playing from time to time, whether it is having competitive fun with friends in the likes of Mario Party, Mario Kart, Among Us (if that is still popular) and many more, or taking it in my own accord with some solo games like Sonic the hedgehog, Legend of Zelda, Batman Arkham series, Rayman or more heavy storied ones like Last of Us, God of War or Red Dead Redemption, each of them have their own unique style and tone that helps to make them work in their media format in many different ways. But then there comes a time where some studios like Warner Bros, Sony, Universal or any other studio would try their hand at taking one of these IPS and turn it into an adaptation for the big screen or television and the results are for a good long while, been very messy but with some results in the process that have worked in its favour. But as time went in and more and more IPS are created and technology and creative minds start to come together in different ways, it has started to see over the last decade in most case where these adaptations have started to improve and become more well received and more beloved by reviewers, critics and audiences alike. There are many point to discuss why they have improved and today I'll be discussing on the appeal of why they try to adapt films and how it has seen some improvement, where I think it started to improve and what I hope for the future with some adaptations.
Part 1: The Beginning and the Curse
Now with any form of adaptations there is always going to be a starting point for it to begin like the MCU started with Iron Man, DCEU (1st run through) Started with the Man of Steel and the Dark Universe started and ended with the Mummy (remember that one with Tom Cruise and the trailer was released with it having no audio over it) and for the form of Video game adaptations while some predate this one but were exclusive in Japan, the first movie actually involved the iconic Plumber Mario in The Super Mario Bros Movie released just about 30 years ago in 1993. Now the idea of this sounds like a no brainer and can work well for the concept of a Italian Plumber travelling across a vast land to rescue the princess from a giant fire breathing turtle, however this film would have quite the craziest of production where it started to be made by director Roland Joffe and given full creative control from Nintendo to make a film that would be inspired from Wizard of Oz and Ghostbusters that turned into a serious drama instead of a fun comedy, then saw a change in writer for a more fun and lighter tone similar to the games and then the constant changing directors, producers and writers, behind the scenes arguments and non complete scripts and stars being intoxicated throughout the entire production by the end of it that it had very little of a connection to the game series that came before it.
(there was some attempt with trying to look familiar but it was minimum among all the problems)
(I would like to speak to the person who designed this and tell me how this is supposed to be a Goomba)
It gave the idea that given a bit of a creative freedom control to someone to make a movie on one of Gaming's most iconic mascots that it would feel best to try and keep it more closer to the series it is based on and not make this weird wacky 90s dystopian future film that is vaguely reminiscent of the games but really far from it. This film ended up surprisingly being panned by Critics and also being a box office bomb even for a video game adaptation with making just under $39 million, which may not be too bad back in the early 90s but when it earned less then the actual budget of the film then you know it is bad and this soon led to Nintendo being more strict and not really giving their properties to use in any more film adaptation until nearly 30 years later with, technically, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu in 2019 (most Pokémon games are exclusive to Nintendo consoles) and a Super Mario Bros Movie just released this year in 2023 (which you can have a read of my review for it here and will discuss briefly later in the last bit).
I myself had recently re-watched this movie a day or 2 before I saw the newest version of the movie and it is that film where I remember watching it a while back but do not remember watching it at all (which doesn't make sense) and it is really a major 180 on what they thought a Mario game was to make into a movie and is turned into a weird fever dream of weird visual effects, creepy looking creature designs, weird design and concept choices and a story that some elements were used in the newer animated one but done so much more better in the new one (mainly just the ideal that they are plumbers) but feels like it was its own separate adventure story that got morphed into Mario and Luigi being placed into it. If I had to give it a score, while it is not the most entertaining of films and not get much of a high score, there was signs of a good attempt to it and I would give it a 4/ 4.5 out of 10.
Now what did spawn from this was labelled as many pundits and critics as this being the start of what was dubbed as "The Video Game Curse". But this was just the first attempt at a game adaptation and wasn't that good and now it is deemed a curse for adaptations. Surely it is just a one off thing right? Well let's get onto that now.
Part 2: The Quest for content and the growing of the curse
(They kept on coming and did not stop coming)
While many had seen the likes of Mario being a rough start to making movie adaptations in Hollywood, it did not stop many other companies and studios wanting a piece out of this new concept of adapting gaming properties. From that point no game studios releases were safe from some big names in suits in the entertainment industry looking to find ways to obtain big names or big known names in Hollywood to be part of their big named titles. Following on from the release of the Mario Movie over the next few years in the 90s there was a fair amount of more adaptations that have come along with some aspects of a few being forgotten about like 1994s Double Dragon or 1999s Wing Commander with both also showing the case of both having a poorer reception and a pretty bad box office. However besides Mario there are 2 other adaptations from this decade that while they may not be well received from the critic side of sides, they did do a much better in earnings and both have a similar genre of game to them and that is 1994s Street Fighter movie and 1995s first Mortal Kombat movie (I say first as we will get back to this series overtime).
Now both of these movies were proven to be more popular from fans when it came down to a little bit of recognizability. Whereas the Mario movie only recognizable aspect of the names of the characters and the profession of the brothers as plumbers, the likes of SF and MK was that they were more on the side of characters being more recognized as well as the concepts they are based on with Street Fighter being loosely based on the plot to Street Fighter II: The world warrior of colonel Guile, with the aid of Ryu and Ken trying to stop M.Bison from conquering the world with the aid of his Super soldiers, whereas the Mortal Kombat movie is loosely based on the story of Mortal Kombat I game and elements of its sequel of a group of heroes who take part in the Mortal Kombat fighting contest and must do so to save the earth from malevolent forces and they are widely remembered more from that era (MK more then SF but you get the idea).
But when things seemed like maybe this was just a ruse of a few bad apples in this orchid when it came to the bad adaptations of games, we then go deeper and into a more darker location in the area known as the franchising and curse demon of Uwe Boll, the ruler of the adaptation curse (more on him in a moment)
*Add a thunder and Lighting strike effect at this point when I say his name at first*
Now what am I meaning by when I say franchising, well with all forms of adaptation you are bound to not want to just keep it at one as when you have a potential or a studio sees potential (Mostly Behind the Dollar signs in their eyes) that they could stretch some material out to a sequel, then that gets a sequel, a spin-off, a prequel and all other Quels under the sun and really going to milk this series dry. The first sign of a franchising was actually before the 2000s as following the original Mortal Kombat in 1995, they released a sequel with the subtitle of Annihilation in 1997 which was seen as looking a lot more cheap looking and just a lot more disappointing then the original.
Now onto the 2000s saw the makings of at least 3 franchising series adaptations (one that didn't appear until the following decade and again in the current decade but will come to that later) but the 2 that did spawn from this decade with short duology (and then a 3rd and soon 4th entry) of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and then the longest video game adaptation franchise with the Resident Evil series.
Now lets start with the franchise that started the century and that is with the Female led Tomb Raider series. Now the original film released back in 2001 around 5 years after the original game released in 1996 and 4 subsequent sequels. The film does follow the same aspects of the games with Lara being a treasure hunter who crosses the globe after dangerous artifacts that could spell catastrophe and this is similar with Lara trying to find and obtain an ancient artifact that has the power to control time and not let it fall into the hands of the Illuminati. Now reception for this movie has not been given the most positive of reception but it has gained much of a cult following, especially in the performance of Lara herself, and while she is supposed to be a British woman in the games, she is given a great performance from actress Angelina Jolie and for the longest time this was ranked as one of the highest grossing Video game adaptation of all time and with that success sees potential franchising and Paramount would take that opportunity about 2 years later with a sequel.
(probably back in the day it looked cool but here now it looks a little goofy)
Cradle of Life released just 2 years and a month later in July 2003 and saw Jolie once again suit up in the outfit and dual weapons of Lara Croft where this time she was on the hunt to find and obtain Pandora's Box and not let it fall into the hands of the antagonist of Johnathon Reiss, who wants to use it to create weapons of Mass Destruction. Now while reception was slightly a bit more better received then the original and the performance of Jolie was once again the highlight, as well as the improved action scenes, it was however not as financially well received as the predecessor but was still a decent box office for the time. This was the 2nd part of a possible trilogy of separate stories on Tomb Raider but those plans became dormant after it was learned that Angelina Jolie was not coming back as the role of Lara and the only form of seeing her was through video games and then another adaptation would come along 15 years later in 2018 (but we will come to that later). But while this franchise was laying dormant, in between the 2 films of this series another franchise had begun and was also being given a female focused lead.
In March of 2002, Director Paul W.S Anderson began his series of films based on the popular horror franchise of Resident Evil. Now this film franchise does connect in some capacity to the games which involve a evil corporation known as Umbrella who created what is known as the T-virus and uses it to create a horde of zombies in all forms but this series is not focused on many of the known characters (even if a good amount of the first film takes inspiration from the first 3 games in the mainline series) like Chris or Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine or Leon S.Kennedy or Barry Burton, but instead we are introduced to the female lead of the entire series (and the actress that would end up engaged with this film creator) of Alice who is played in this series by Milla Jovovich, a character with Amnesia that is on the hunt to stop and contain the T-virus from an underground facility under the control of Umbrella that is simply known as The Hive. Now while similar with the Tomb Raider films this movie did gain itself a cult following overtime and is the films specifically known for Jovovich's performance as Alice and at first was slightly better recieved then the Tomb Raider films (just slightly in reception) and was a modest box office success at the time and from this story ended saw the potential of a series and a series it did become with this decade being the time frame of half the film franchise released in.
Over the course of the next half decade would see the release of 2 sequels in this continuing franchise that would star Milla in the role as Alice and this came in the form of Resident Evil Apocalypse in September 2004 and Extinction 3 years later in September 2007. Now these 2 films were not directed by her husband but he was still involved as a writer a producer. On the plot of Apocalypse, Alice has now found herself in Raccoon city, the main base location of Resident evil 2 and 3 and must fight her way through the undead and other strange creatures in order to get out of this barren wasteland with the aid of other survivors, specifically Jill Valentine and Carlos Olivera the main leads of Resident Evil 3 Nemesis. This film is ranked as the weakest in reception from critics who see it too much like re-watching the original film but did a slightly bit more better in earnings at the box office (but just slightly).
As for extinction this one was set a few years after the events of Apocalypse and saw Alice and a large group of survivors trying to cross the Mojave desert to Alaska to escape from the Zombie Apocalypse of Raccoon City and for Alice with the aid of series character Claire Redfield to go after the head of Umbrella of series antagonist of Albert Wesker. Now as the series went on the reception seemed to fluctuate with this one being the middle ground in terms of poor reception from critics but it was noticeable from these movies that they were earning more and more with each installment in the franchise and it will have to be seen if the rest of the series sees the increase of earning at the box office until its finale, but we will return to this series at a later time. Cause for now we need to talk about the man known for the creation of some of the worst of the worst in adaptations and he goes by the name of Uwe Boll.
Now Uwe Boll for those uninitiated is a filmmaker from Germany how was the one that created most of the video game adaptations of this decade and most were labelled as the worst adaptations and even worst movies of all time. Now he also has a record of trying to start beef and calling out critics for a boxing match (which he did do and fought 5 critics in boxing matches back in 2005-2006) so I am not going to delve too much into criticizing his work and instead will talk on the adaptations he did and the reason as to why man people dislike them.
Now out of the 17 films that were adaptations of video games released for cinemas (not counting the animated ones which there were a few of I will talk on later and the straight to DVD/Streaming ones) Boll had directed 7 of them that got released to the big screen which were 2003s House of the Dead, 2005's Alone in the Dark, 2006s BloodRayne, 2007s Postal, and 2008s In the Name of the King: A dungeon Siege tale and Far Cry (he also in the decade made straight to DVD sequels to Alone in the Dark and BloodRayne in 2007 and 2008 respectively). In the following decade he would make 3 more adaptations but straight to DVD sequels of BloodRayne 3 (with an initial planned 4th one) and In the Name of the King 2 and 3. Now While I did mention a lot of his adaptations have been labelled as the worst, it also comes in the effect of his box office as a lot of them do really poorly at the box office with the highest earning being The Dungeon Siege Tale at $13 million and his lowest not evening earning $150k with Postal. A lot of the reason for the poor reception for these films is that he is often credited from sources and people that worked on his projects that he tends to really take a sharp turn away from the proper adaptation of them and add in aspects from other films that he finds interesting to implement but may be further from the point of the games aesthetic and has gone on record to call out the likes of directors Eli Roth, Michael Bay and Quentin Tarantino and call them the R word (which I am not going to say here even in text form). It has seemed that the studios looking to make adaptations of their games have caught on as he has stopped making adaptations (with both Kojima not letting him direct the Metal Gear Solid Film and Blizzard not letting him try and make the Warcraft film) and retired in 2016 before he is now back making movies since the start of the decade but who knows if he will come back.
Now besides franchising and Bolls work there were some in there that did have some sense of remembrance and have a sense of following and praise. Some of them that did recieve a bit of a big anticipation came from the animated side of things with most animated adaptations coming to us in the form of the Pokemon movies and one in the Final Fantasy and Resident Evil franchise. Now reception on those were also a little mixed but for the Resident evil one entitled Degeneration was the first one to stick with a more positive reception and most of them had quite a major box office success with each installment with some even more then the Live action ones. But on that side of things we did see some popular ones like the adaptation of Doom in 2005 with Karl Urban and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, the first Silent Hill movie in 2006 and even the first attempt of the film adaptation of the Hitman games, then with the likes of some poorer or less known like the Dead or Alive movie in 2007 or a Max Payne film starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis in 2008 or even a Street Fighter prequel film in 2009 focused on the character of Chun Li but not using the same actress from the Street Fighter movie from the 90s and would cap off the decade with the adaptations.
Now it was at this point that many people had given the moniker that all forms of adaptations of video games were never going to be a profitable or well recieved genre of film as we have hit the dark era of them by the decades end and it seemed like there was no hope. But sometimes a glimmer of hope can appear in the darkness and could possibly bring it into the light.
Part 3: The fading curse and the glimmer of improving Hope
(while not a game adaptation, this somewhat counts and 3 other films that technically count)
Now heading into the new decade the hopes of a lot of adaptations were not that anticipated and the bar for a lot of them were set pretty low. This was proven with the unanimously panned film based on the fight game of Tekken in March 2010 that also bombed hard with audiences too. However there was another film out that year that did see some hopeful potential of possibly doing good and that was coming to us from the House of Mouse of Disney with their only attempt at a Video game adaptation and that was Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. There was hope as at the time Disney were ones making some top quality films on the animation side of things and proved they can do adaptations very well with the Narnia films and live action stories with the Pirates of the Caribbean series so there was hope.
This new film was taken the inspiration from the game of the same name as well as elements of its game sequels of the Warrior within and The Two Thrones which sees the main lead Dastan teaming with the Princess Tamina to stop the plans of his uncle Nizam from controlling time with a special dagger that can reverse the flow of time with its mystical powers. Now this one was a lot more high budget and had some big names, even if those big named actors like Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton and Ben Kingsley were criticized as it was whitewashing the cast and not using actors from the actual location the games and film is set. Nevertheless it was still panned from critics but a lot less so then about 80% of the adaptations from the 2000s and soon became for a short while the highest grossing Video Game Adaptation (even if the film made around 350 million, it was still seen as a box office disappointment for Disney, which sounds eerily similar to today with them) and was seen as a sign of the adaptations were starting to become more of an improvement overtime and maybe even good someday (but we'll get to that soon).
Now returning on the basis of franchising was the return of 2 series for the continuation and ending of their franchising and that was the following 2 Resident evil movies of 2011s Resident Evil Afterlife and 2012s Retributions and the other was the Sequel to Silent Hill with 2012s Silent Hill Revelation. With Afterlife saw also the return of Paul W.S Anderson back in the directors chair for the remainder of the films as well as these 2 hopping on the craze of every film being released in 3D (to some varying degrees of success) and the plot for each of them continued the story of Milla Jovovich's character of Alice with Afterlife seeing her learn and trying to get to a safe haven known as Arcadia with a group of other survivors which includes both Redfields of Chris and Claire while trying to escape the clutches of the Umbrella Corporation. As for Retribution she is on the hunt to taking out those responsible for the creation of the T-virus that is on the verge of wiping out the entire Human Race. Now while the reception is still as mixed as ever for these films, they will still making a fairly decent profit for video game movie adaptations with the most making a little over $300 million and then would see the series come to an end in the final chapter in early 2017 that sees them face off against Wesker and the remains of Umbrella with the aid of the remaining apocalypse survivors and became the highest earning film in the franchise, despite the mixed reception.
Now on the last few films I will mention of the first half of the decade were a mixed bag with the remainder of the straight video game adaptations being 2014s Need for Speed with Aaron Paul and 2015's Hitman Agent 47 with Rupert Friend as Agent 47 that both did decently alright with earnings but reception was rough (especially with Agent 47). This was however not the only films that had an aesthetic of a gaming concept as there was 2 films that released that also took those elements with one being well beloved, critics and box office positive and earned award nominations and a sequel 6 years later and one that was based on a YouTube short film from the late 2000s and was a mixed bag recieved film but had an interesting idea and these films were 2012 Disney film Wreck It Ralph and 2015 Adam Sandler Comedy Pixels.
I add these in cause they do count as Video game movies with Wreck it Ralph focusing on the title character as he is tired of being the villain of his arcade game and wants to go off and prove he can be a good guy, where he ends up in a candyland kart racer and becomes friends with a young outcast in that game due to her glitching and will discover a way that while he may be bad, it is still good. I personally love this film and so did a lot of other people and it did spawn a sequel a few years later that while it was well recieved at first, was soon hot with a lot of mixed reception, especially online, for not really going to hard in on the internet aspect it was titled after (although I did enjoy a good bit of it and well delve more into these films in a future re-watchathon).
and as for Pixels, I mentioned this was based on a Youtube Short film which spawned into this Sony film about a tale of back in the 1980s, a capsule was sent into space full of items that were used to try and contact alien life and something did answer and saw the likes of video games as an act of war and soon start an alien invasion where their attack defenses were in the form of video game characters like Centipede, Donkey Kong and Pac-man and will see 4 gaming champions from the 80s being enlisted by the government as the worlds only hope of stopping the world from being destroyed. It is goofy, it is not great but I did enjoy it when I saw it a while back, I am not sure if I will still but I can give it a watch again in the future.
Now it seemed like the start of the decade had one success out of the failures and it looked like the following half decade was looking the same, but honestly to me once we got to 2016, this was where I saw the most improvement as did a fair amount of other people and saw that there may be potential after all with these adaptation.
Now of all the years that there has been video game adaptations the biggest year was in 2016 where their was a total of 4 films released with the first 3 releasing within weeks of each other and the last one coming out in December of that year and they were in order of release Ratchet and Clank, The Angry Birds Movie, Warcraft and Assassins creed each with them all having various degrees of success or disappointment to them and having seen them I will briefly talk on them now
Starting with Ratchet and Clank, this was one of them that came and went and never got much of a big release time and the only reason most people remember their was a film was the tie in game which was a remake of the original game in the series that sees Ratchet, a creature known as a Lombax and wants to be a part of the Galactic Rangers, gets his chance to prove he can be a hero with the assistance of a small robot named Clank as they try to stop the evil chairman Drek from wiping out an entire galaxy from the universe. Now the film was fine, nothing too mind blowing besides animation and design being great and it was inoffensive but most case feel it was affected by the games release at the same time and not given much marketing which saw a poor reception and low box office for it but something I would watch again if I stumble across it in physical media or streaming.
I will admit one thing but I had a bit of an obsession with Angry Birds and was confused when it was announced to be getting a full animated film when the game literally had not much of a plot of green pigs steal the birds eggs, Birds get mad and use a Slingshot to kamikaze themselves into their crafted constructions. Well then the film came along and was an origin story that showed how they became rivals and focused on Red, the games signature bird who has a lot of anger issues and end up in anger management with most of the other characters from the game like Speedy chuck, explosive bird Bomb, Projectile bird Matilda and quiet and menacing bird Terrance and soon they must save their stolen eggs from the King Pig and his army of minions. Now this film did the impossible and for a point was the first big release film that had a positive critics score for s short time and also overtook the top spot at the box office from huge Marvel film Captain America Civil War. I for one did enjoy this when it came out and looking back now I have noticed even then there was not so very subtle adult jokes that they make and it is very weird for a good amount of it, but they do tone it down a lot in the sequel a few years later (which we will talk on later).
Now for the last 2 these were the more bigger and more riskier approaches given that Warcraft was based on the massive popular MMO of World Of Warcraft and told the story of how the Humans and the Orcs came to becomes enemies. Now I do remember seeing this film when it was in cinemas and it was interesting, it looked visually great and everything and even if I have not played much of WOW I will say it was alright, I am sure if I did play it I would have a better opinion of it but it seemed to have been a success as it was for a long time the highest grossing video game adaptation until just this year and reception was more mixed and because of it was slightly seen as a box office failure (especially in the US) and the likes of a sequel is still in discussion but is unclear if it will be a sequel to this or a complete reboot but only time will tell what will come from it
and for the last of 2016s films we have the big release of a film based on the long running Assassins creed series. This one was not connected much to the rest of the series as there was no Desmond and no assassins from the other games but rather it was based on an assassins from the era of the Spanish inquisition of the late 15th century with the focus of the main character of Cal Lynch being taken by the evil corporation of Abstergo and strapped into the machine of the Animus to harness his ancestral memories in order to find the location of the Piece of Eden they are after. Now it is very high budget and looked great but it is a bit of a disappointing film, mainly due to the film really not having much focus on the aspect everyone plays the games for, which is being in the time frame with the characters from the past instead of the characters in the present yet there is more runtime in present day then in 1490s Spain. I am sure that they had plans to expand it with a planned trilogy but it was cancelled due to a bit of a poor box office (even though it made around $250 million) and because Disney bought the distributor of Fox in 2019 but I am sure there is a chance to fix on the problem of this film (more on that later).
Now while it was seeing as still a bit of a mixed bag there was still many signs of people pointing out that these adaptations were improving more and more over the early adaptations and an aspect I can see that helped it was the involvement of the studios that made those games. You see a lot more noticeable from this point that for all of the adaptation films in 2016 were actually produced and worked on in collaboration with their studios with Insomniac helping R&C with character development, animation assets and the screenplay with some of the games voice cast involved as well, Rovio worked very closely on animation and marketing with Sony Pictures Imageworks on the Angry Birds Movie, Blizzard had been heavily involved in production since announcing the film in 2006 and Ubisoft had been involved in creative control of the Assassins Creed film. This soon started more of the trend where game companies that the adaptations were based from would be come heavily involved with the production and has seen some semblance of success in the process.
But while the Film side of adaptations was seeing some semblance of improvement towards better reception and earnings, there was a side that had its share of content over the years but got more into the big budget adaptations with a lot more better success from the get go and that is from the side of the television approach. Now there was not many in this starting point and I will delve more into these in the final part but while there was the new updated version on Carmen SanDiego, there was a series that did come along and drop out of nowhere in 2017 that lasted for 4 stellar seasons of story and animation and it was in a show known simply as Castlevania
This was a series that was based on the long running popular series from Konami and was based on the aspects of 2 of the games in the series of Castlevania III Draculas curse and Castlevania: Curse of Darkness as it followed a member of the disgraced family of the franchise of the Belmonts with Trevor Belmont as well as Alucard and Sypha Belnades as they would defend the land of Wallachia from the evil Dracula and his Minions. Now while this was not worked on from the studio that made the games and not a full adaptation of the games and was supposed to be a film adaptation at one point, it was done in a fresh and unique take on the element found in the series and done in a stylized flashy way of Anime and the series proved to be universally praised from beginning to end (with most complaints being pacing issues but you'll get that with anything) and showed that the ideas of making a good adaptation could be based on making it feel close to the material without fully copying it fully but making it feel like it is part of the universe.
Now it seemed it was looking like the idea of making a good adaptation from a game was a best bet with a tv or streaming series, but the film side was still making an effort of improvement and saw a better film reception for both of them with a new obscure game getting a treatment and return of one that had the semblance of franchising from 15 year prior
On the franchising side of things is with an all new version of the Tomb Raider films but was not with Jolie but now with Oscar winner Alicia Vikander in the role and was more of a origins to the Explorer herself with inspiration taking heavily from the 2013 reboot and 2015 games where while it did take set pieces from those games, it did have its own story that mixed elements of both plots and it turned out a modest box office success (even if it was short 2 million to break even apparently) and some aspects were praised yet one aspect that was a divided response was the leading role as some saw her as a strong performance, and others saw her as a bland character. There was talks of a sequel before the film rights expired and she left the role but there is talks a new series being written by Fleabag star Phoebe Waller Bridge is in the works with Amazon and will see how that turns out in the future
As for the other adaptation, we were going further back to the arcade days with a film based on the game Rampage which saw a return to the game adaptations of the Rock as he plays a Primatologist and teams with Dr Kate Caldwell, a geneticist as they try to save George, a white Albino ape that has seen major increased growth and must stop 2 other mutated animals from destroying the city of Chicago. Now it may seem like some excuse for watching a lot of mayhem and destruction on a large scale and you would not be too wrong as it was a film of big action set pieces and was praised for that as well on visuals and performances and then criticized for basic plots, but it did however became one of the highest grossing Adaptations so it did have some success come from it.
Now it was looking like it was heading in the right direction that reception was getting better and becoming more ideal and it was only a matter of time before it would cross the mark of success in earning as well as being a film that was more positively received. But a few months later after Rampage hit the big screen, we got the first look at the film that would do just that
Now Pokémon at the time has had a fair few film adaptations and a long running animated series but what this new one was going to do was take the wonderful world of Pokémon and bring it into the Live Action side of things but instead of focusing on the battles and the character of Ash Ketchum, instead it was making an adaptation of a recently released Spin off for the Nintendo handheld of a talking, wisecracking, caffeine loving version of Pikachu with Pokémon Detective Pikachu in May 2019 that saw Ryan Reynolds taking on the role of the electric mouse as it teams up with his original partners son Tim to solve the mystery of his dad's disappearance and uncover a major conspiracy in Ryme City. Now this film at first was a bit of a surprise to many, mainly due to hearing Ryan Reynolds voice come out of one of the most popular characters from the franchise, but overtime people got used to it with all of the footage and promotional material that came out for it up until the films release where it was the first Video game adaptation to receive mainly positive reviews and stay mostly positive and earn at the time the 2nd highest grossing adaptation at the time.
Well it seemed like we reached the peak point for it to start to see better box office reception and reviews getting good I am sure that its all going to go good right.......
(I mean I had to bring it up at some point)
well, lets get to the last part and talk about it shall we
Part 4: Adaptations of today and into the Great Unknown
Now technically this is not the next film to release in terms of adaptation but we will come back to those next ones in a moment as there was a focus point that shifted away from them and focused specifically on a certain fast Blue hedgehog an his...... new look. A month after the trailer for the Detective Pikachu movie dropped, a teaser motion poster came along and brought the internet to a collective level of concern as many somewhat horrified of what was presented to them in the image
as you can see there was a few distinct point everyone went to which mainly focused on his weird human hands instead of those in the gloves, very muscular human legs instead of the smaller iconic ones and a supposed weird eye in the shadow and people were very creeped out and we would not see a full unveiled version until a few months later when we were introduced to that version seen above in the trailer. What soon followed was a cavalcade of memes, reworks and reactions to the design and trailer and everyone wrote this off as a super disaster until it came to a point where they delayed it and announced he was going to get a makeover and it went silent until the week the film was supposed to come out we got the news we were waiting for
The scary alien like version was gone and in came this new edition that brought the full charm of the character and a complete 180 where a lot were against it had now become very excited for this and a few months later we finally saw this new version of this fast blue Hedgehog make his big screen debut where he teams up with a local sheriff in the real world in order to stop the dastardly plans of one Dr Robotnik. This film came along and stayed in the semblance of the other recent adaptations of being well received and had gotten a pretty strong box office (and probably would've done a lot more if not for the world shutting down from the pandemic) and its success saw the announcement and release of a sequel 2 years later with a 3rd film on the way for Christmas next year and a planned spin off focused of Knuckles that was introduced in the sequel. And while I had faith in it from the beginning I will give one thing and say props to the artists that gave us this excellent design and hopefully got a lot of other great jobs from this.
So this is where we find ourselves in the near present day and the video game adaptations have come a long way from when they began from being very messy to a level of professional approach that have seen some major visual appeals. Following on from the first film to see a positive reception and a strong Box office the next film before the fast Blue hedgehog, that would for a time in film be the best reviewed one based on a video game and it comes from one you would not expect to be the best recieved (before it is taken over for best reviewed 2 year later)
Yes the best reviewed video game adaptation for a short bit of time was the sequel to the Angry Birds Movie which the story for the sequel was seeing the Birds and the Pigs settle their conflict and team up to stop both of their islands from being destroyed from a discovery from a 3rd frozen island that has launched giant Ice balls at them and they must stop total calamity, even if the Birds and Pigs may be enemies but they are going to have to become frenemies. Now while it was pretty decently recieved, it didn't make as much as the first film and most case was that it may have been a bit too cartoonish or from the excessive amount of adult jokes in the original. Now I did see this when it came out and it is a pretty good movie (and one of Sony's better Animated films) but depending on if this would get a 3rd film is debatable (especially with whatever is going on with their weird social media video involving Red).
It was also by the end of this year that we were introduced to a new adaptation of a series that had gotten quite the big popular boost with its award winning games and from the lead role performance that many would come to love and that was with the Netflix adaptation of The Witcher with Superman actor Henry Cavill as Geralt of Riveria. Now this role has been well loved by many and a lot of people were interested in the first season but following on with the following 2 seasons (as of writing the last 2 episode of season 3 is yet to release) it has seen a bit more of a mixed response. It did also spawn an animated film that was also well recieved and another one at the end of 2022 that was greatly panned by critics and audiences. But even with the mixed reception, the one praise anyone gives this series is Cavill's as him being a major fan of the books and games, he really wanted the role and wanted to make it so much like the material they were based from (which seemed to be the complete opposite of what the production crew wanted and did not care for the material and yet Cavill is the one to be replaced). As of now we don't know how the series will do without Henry in the role but only time will tell for the future.
After a few successful stints of Modestly recieved films, things were quiet for a good bit of 2020 for films due to the Pandemic but in that process their was the release of 2 critically acclaimed shows on streaming with one continuing on from the previous year with Carmen Sandiego which while more based on a gameshow did receive some games and the new series served as a origin story to the character that was seen as the antagonistic thief with making her more developed from the other shows that glanced over it.
The other one that was short lived was a one season series on the recently released video game of Dragon's Dogma that told the plot story of the main character of Ethan who sets out on a quest to vanquish the dragon that used its power to take his heart and with every demon or creature he defeats, the more and more of his humanity that he loses. While it had some decent reception it was not one that was not that popular and only lasted for a seasons worth of story
However it didn't end with just 1 film and 2 shows in 2020 as there was one other adaptation that came along and starred Adaptation Queen Milla Jovovich in an adaptation of the popular Capcom series of Monster Hunter but with the twist of her character of Captain Artremis, an army squad leader who gets teleported from their own world into the world where Monsters and Humans Co-exist and must find their way to get back home with the help of a mysterious Hunter. Now the gimmick is similar to the Resident evil films with it taking place in the same world but much focusing on the characters we know too much about and some were taken a little mixed on it as well with the critics praising its visuals and action but Direction and Editing were not that strong. It also was a disappointment at the Box office but I can give it a pass as this film did come out at the time of in the midst of the pandemic so I say for the time it was decent but if it wasn't then It can be debated of what went wrong.
Now there was at least another 2 forms of franchising that we can talk on left before we warp this up and one was one that has the most adaptations with a new film and series and another that has been dormant since the 90s unless you want to count some of the animated films of the franchise.
After being dormant in live action films since the mid 90s, but still being a long popular game franchise, it was bound to be brought back in a new Live action form and in April 2021, it was answered with an all new Mortal Kombat that was much bigger, action packed and bloodier then ever with the new plot focusing on the washed up MMA fighter of Cole Young who gets chosen to join a team of champions in some high stakes battles to save their world from being overtaken by the Outworld. Now the reception was decent if not a little mixed but was better received then the other 2 films, its only noticeable dip was from box office revenue as this film was one of the victims of the HBO Max idea to release films day and date in cinemas and streaming which affected a fair amount of the films released that year. It was successful enough to earn itself a sequel that is currently in development with Karl Urban as Johnny Cage but we will see how that turns out when it eventually releases.
The other aspects of the Franchising was with another film adaptation and a Netflix series of the long running Resident film once again that released within 7 months of each other (no matter how hard I try there never seems to be an end of the Resident evil films). The first was the film of Welcome to Raccoon City and this one was labelled at being more of a faithful adaptation to the games with this one combining plot elements of Both the original and 2's story and saw the appearance of the Redfields, Leon, Jill, Ada and Wesker. Now it was praised for its more faithfulness, not much else was especially a debate on the casting for the characters. It also wasn't the biggest of money makers and was the lowest earning in the series (but again still in the Pandemic era). As for its TV series, there was potential and most people usually give praise to the game adaptations on Netflix with it having a more present day setting to everything but it failed to really appeal to both Critics and especially audiences and was cancelled after just one season. Not much else is known on the future of this franchise besides animated film versions but I am sure this series like the zombies in this series will never stay fully dead.
As the remaining films of this era we have both the best reviewed film adaptation which came to us in 2021 and an adaptation that has been in development hell for nearly a decade. For the best reviewed film is coming from Werewolves within, an adaptation of a multiplayer VR game from Ubisoft that sees a group of people being stuck in a Vermont town during a heavy snowstorm but turns into a game of life and death when it is suspected that one of these civilians is a Werewolf in disguise. It is still as of writing the best reviewed video game movie adaptation and while it didn't make the biggest of box office returns given the small amount of cinemas showing it did become the most popular iTunes purchase for it genre type.
As for the one stuck in development hell is the adaptation of Naughty Dog's popular series of Uncharted that stars Spider-Man himself Tom Holland as Nathan Drake as he meets the charismatic grouch Victor Sullivan and go on a worldwide adventure to find the lost treasure of Magellan's expedition to the Indies . Now this one is not bad but it has that whole thing of trying to put in something from all of the 4 mainline games with the most focus taken from 2016s A Thief's end with elements from the previous 3 including the above plane scene. Now it was initially Mark Wahlberg playing Nathan before he ended up being replaced as Holland and he became Sullivan once things started to pick up. Despite its mixed reception which a part was also due to the casting of the main leads (a theme that will appear at least once more in this piece) it was a very modest success for adaptations and is one of the highest grossing adaptations and the biggest earner of the 2 films (beating Sonic 2 by just about 2 million more).
Meanwhile on the TV series side of things, it would see a select amount of adaptations releasing to critical acclaim and some dubbing them as the best and that started with the League of Legends Series of Arcane
Now the idea of a LOL adaptation was seen as a bit of a weird choice but then out of nowhere the series came along in late 2021 and became one of the most beloved adaptations of all time that focuses on the origin of 2 iconic characters of the series, Vi and Jinx, and set in the Utopian Piltover and oppressed underground of Zaun. What came along was the appeal for those who never played the games and those that are diehard fans and I agree as it is excellent and with a second season confirmed in the works, lets hope they strike Lightning Twice.
going into the releases of last year saw a variety of choice where its animated or anime inspired ones were well praised while its live action selection, not so much.
On animated side we got the full series of the adaptation of Cuphead based on the challenging boss battle indie game which looked at the misadventures of Cuphead and his brother Mugman as they have fun on the Inkwell isles while staying one step ahead of the Devil that wants their souls. This kept the charm of the games with the classic 1930s Hosepipe animation and proved to be quite the success overall (and quite a spectacle of animation in this day and age).
We also Saw sonic return to the small screen with a new multidimensional adventure with Sonic prime as he has caused the creation of the Shatterverse from the Paradox Prism he acidentally broke and he goes to new universes to restore the crystal from being obtained from the variations of Eggman. It has also proved a well recieved series with a 2nd season just recently released to same positive reception and would not be surprised for a release of a 3rd soon enough.
Lastly in animated side of things, we saw an anime of a fairly recently released game that was quite anticipated that launched with a major mess and that was with edge runners, a series based on the recently Cyberpunk 2077 game that is a prequel to the game and set a year before that story's events that focuses on a street kid named David who begins to survive on the wrong side of the law as an Edgerunner or a mercinary after losing everything in a drive by shooting. Now visually it does look stunning and will need to give this a proper watch before I head into the world of Night city myself to really see what it is like.
And on the live action side, while I already mentioned RE there was one other series that came out last year and that was with its very divided opinion was the high budget adaptation of the Halo series. Now the series followed Master Chief as he defend the entirety of Humanity from the Alien Covenant in the distant 26th century. Now while the action, cast and visuals were a highlight, the big debate from many audiences and critics was from its deviations of the source materials due to the Chief kept removing his helmet to show his face and that he has a sex drive when it is never a thing in the game series. Now whether these issues are addressed in the 2nd season is anyone's guess but we will have to see by then when it eventually releases.
And now we come to present day where we have 2 of the most successful and acclaimed forms of releases. Now these 2 I will not talk too much one as I want to give them their own separate piece (with one I have already talked about a while ago which you can heck out Here.
Our first is of course the long awaited adaptation of one of the most acclaimed games of all time: The Last of Us which this series follows the story of the original as we jump in dystopian future where a cordyceps virus has destroyed the world and turned many into infected creatures and we follow the story of Joel who has lost his daughter when the whole outbreak began and is tasked with escorting a young girl named Ellie across the remains of America to reach a group known as the Fireflies as she could be the key in restoring Humanity. Upon release it has been hit with Universal acclaim for its casting, writing, visuals and set pieces and has been receiving many awards at this years Emmys. Now I loved this series and will talk about it more in a separate review and videos (especially about how a few of these episodes did make me cry) but I would recommend it if you haven't seen it yet (I also reviewed the original game which you can check out here and I for one am very excited for season 2.
and of course we have the animated juggernaut of the Super Mario Bros Movie that came out back at easter of this year and while is had its shar of concerns of it being made by Illumination and the casting choices for the characters, it was one of the more better received films (especially with audiences) and is the highest grossing Video game adaptation and the only film this year to gross over a Billion Dollars and I for one am hoping for a sequel. You can check out my written review in the link above (or my video version that you can check out here.
Conclusion: The future
And now as I wrap this up, there is to know that their are plenty of adaptations to still check out for the rest of this year and beyond. To close out this year we have on the show side an adaptation of the Twisted Metal series and the rest of the 3rd season of The Witcher. As on the film side we have the long awaited adaptation of Five Nights At Freddy's and even an adaptation of the indie hit of Last year Iron Lung and is being made and starring the Youtuber Markiplier (which sounds like a concerning thing but if you have seen his projects he has made then there is that sense of being in good hands) which all sound like some exciting adaptations for this year.
Beyond that we have some for the future like a series on Watch_Dogs, a Castlevania follow up, Assassins creed and Horizon from Netflix and Fallout and God of War from Amazon and with films like a live action Minecraft, a sonic sequel and others like Borderlands, Firewatch, Saints Row, Portal and so much more that I will not list here as this piece has gone on way too much longer then it needed to.
But the moral of all of this is that it has been a long way coming since we saw the idea of an adaptation of a video game as something to try and at first was a complete mess with some forms of diamonds among the rough, but as time went on and studios made more and more projects and increased their scope, they started to see more of a better outcome to everything from its visuals and set pieces and even to the level of being way more faithful to their original counterparts to where we are today with adaptations that are praised and make great numbers of those that see them and creating new ideas and introducing more and more people to the universes these games have created or find out for themselves. Sure there is still a few rough patches here and there with them still and it may be a long way to go before everything is well received and that's ok, sometimes if you like an adaptation that is great, if you don't then that is also great as while they are adaptations, they can still be enjoyed in their original form by playing them from their past or in the present and while the future is uncertain I am sure that these adaptations and these games they are based on will do just fine.
If you enjoyed this overly long essay, let me know your thoughts down below on some of your favourites, what your hopes are for some adaptations and even tell me to shut up my ramblings as I have went overly long on talking about game adaptations (I understand and even I was surprised on the length). But as always I appreciate you taking the time out to read my content and as always, stay being wonderful people and I hope you all have a great day and see you in the next one.
Signing off
Sam H
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