Page 6 The Skanner Portland & Seattle April 21, 2021
Arts & Entertainment
Is it Finally Game on for Video Game Adaptations?
By JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Is
there a more woebegone
movie genre than the vid-
eo game adaptation? This
is the pantheon of “Max
Payne,” “Wing Com-
mander” and “Assassin’s
Creed.” In the 27 years
since the first video game
movie, “Super Mario
Bros.,” these adaptations
have been so regularly
mocked that you might
think the genre was --
like a teetering fighter
in “Mortal Kombat” sur-
rounded by chants of
“Finish him!” -- on its last
legs.
And yet, Hollywood
is increasingly viewing
video games as one of
the ripest, richest veins
of intellectual property
outside of comic books.
Even as much of the film
business slowed over the
year, “Sonic the Hedge-
hog” became the genre’s
highest grosser; a se-
quel is already under-
way. Netflix, which on
Wednesday suggested it
may invest more deep-
ly in gaming, has found
one of its biggest hits
-- the streamer’s answer
to “Game of Thrones”
-- in “The Witcher.” The
Henry Cavill-led series is
based on a fantasy novel
series that found fame as
a popular video game.
No one is engraving
Oscars or Emmys yet.
But it may be that video
game adaptations aren’t
cursed, after all. They
were just going through
some growing pains.
“Comic-book IP is the
biggest IP in the world
right now and yet it took
40 years to really get into
the spotlight and it took
50 years to become the
biggest thing,” says Mat-
thew Ball, a venture cap-
This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows the character
Detective Pikachu, voiced by Ryan Reynolds, in a scene from
“Pokemon Detective Pikachu.” In 2019, “Detective Pikachu,” based
on the Nintendo game, grossed more than $400 million worldwide.
(Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
last year, the hunt for the
kind of IP that has fueled
an overwhelming share
of worldwide box-office
ticket sales has contin-
ued unabated.
The video game movie
isn’t finished. It might
even be just pressing
“Start.”
On Friday, Warner
Bros. will release a new,
rebooted “Mortal Kom-
bat” 26 years after the
first adaptation of the
martial arts fighter. It
was then just the fourth
video game movie, com-
ing on the heels of “Dou-
ble Dragon” and “Street
Fighter,”
with
Jean-
Claude Van Damme. This
was well before the IP
land rush started by Mar-
vel’s success more than a
decade later. “Apollo 13”
was the No. 2 film at the
box office in 1995.
Now, a bloodier, R-rat-
ed “Mortal Kombat”
signals a new cycle for
video game adaptations.
After years of misfires
and flops, it’s lately
seemed like a new level
has been unlocked for
one of the movies’ most
derided genres. In 2019,
“Detective
Pikachu,”
based on the Nintendo
game, grossed more than
$400 million worldwide
for Warner Bros. Last
italist and former head
of strategic planning for
Amazon Studios. “Vid-
eo game adaptions have
been happening since
the early ’90s but we see
a lot of evidence that
people are learning --
they’re training. At some
point in the near future,
I would be shocked if we
didn’t have on a recur-
ring basis one of the big-
gest films and TV series
of the year coming from
video games.”
Hollywood’s hunt for
IP with built-in glob-
al fanbases has found
more dead ends over the
last decade than new di-
rections. But gaming is
unique in its scope and
growth. Last year, the
gaming industry was
worth more than $150
billion. By 2023, reve-
nue will reach $200 bil-
lion, Juniper Research
has forecast, exceeding
the size of the film in-
dustry. A study released
this week by consulting
firm Deloitte found that
the top entertainment
activity of Gen Z -- those
aged 14-24 -- is playing
video games, ranking
over movies or music by
a wide margin.
“There’s
an
appe-
tite and desire to make
things that might have
seemed more niche at
some point,” says “Mor-
tal Kombat” filmmak-
er Simon McQuoid, an
in-demand director of
commercials who’s pre-
viously worked on ad
campaigns for Sony’s
PlayStation and “Halo.” “I
get the feeling people are
OK pushing that forward
and being a little main-
stream with things.”
Many video game
adaptations have had
prolonged or even tor-
turous
developments,
suggesting the industry
is still figuring out how
to tackle these proper-
ties. “Mortal Kombat”
was in development for
a decade. Infamously,
“Sonic the Hedgehog”
was forced to redesign its
animated protagonist af-
ter an outcry from fans.
There are reasons that
video game movies get
ranked from “least bad to
absolute worst.”
Some have suggested
the mediums are inher-
ently distinct. Roger
Ebert maintained video
games aren’t art and “by
their nature require
player choices, which is
the opposite of the strate-
gy of serious film and lit-
erature, which requires
authorial control.”
But someone, eventu-
ally, may crack the code
of the video game mov-
ie. In the years since
Ebert wrote that in 2015,
games have developed in
atmosphere, narrative
and character. They are
more cinematic. More
filmmakers are gamers,
themselves, and they’re
interested in plumbing
virtual worlds while
staying true to a game’s
spirit.
“The importance of the
source material has be-
come something that 20
years ago people didn’t
really care about. They
nodded at it,” says Jo-
hannes Roberts (“47 Me-
ters Down”), director of
the upcoming “Resident
Evil” reboot, “Welcome
to Racoon City.” “There’s
definitely a real under-
standing that you need
to believe and love in it.
I think studio execs get
that, that it is an import-
ant thing, that you can’t
just take the name and
run with it.”
Roberts’ film, currently
in post-production, fol-
lows six “Resident Evil”
films, the longest-run-
ning video game movie
franchise. It’s set for re-
lease in November from
Sony Pictures, which
next February will un-
veil a long-awaited ad-
aptation of the game
“Uncharted” by director
Ruben Fleischer (“Ven-
om,” “Zombieland”), with
Tom Holland and Mark
Wahlberg.
This image released by Paramount Pictures shows Sonic, voiced by Ben Schwartz, in a scene from “Sonic
the Hedgehog.” Last year, “Sonic the Hedgehog” became the genre’s highest grosser; a sequel is already
under way. (Paramount Pictures/Sega of America via AP)
This image released by Netflix shows Henry Caville in a scene from the series “The Witcher,” based on a
fantasy novel series that found fame as a video game. (Katalin Vermes/Netflix via AP)
This image released by 20th Century Fox shows Michael Fassbender as Callum Lynch in a scene from
“Assassin’s Creed.,” a film based on the video game series. (Kerry Brown/20th Century Fox via AP)
Pipelines are getting
crowded. A long-in-de-
velopment, Steven Spiel-
berg-produced “Halo” se-
ries is planned for early
next year on Paramount+.
Netflix will premiere a
“Resident Evil” series in
June; the streamer also
has an “Assassin’s Creed”
series in the works. Last
month, Sony and Play-
Station Productions said
they would produce an
adaptation of the huge-
ly popular game “Ghost
of Tsushima” with “John
Wick” director Chad Sta-
helski.
Launched in 2019, So-
ny’s PlayStation Produc-
tions is uniquely poised
between moviemaking
and video games. The
production
company
is also making an HBO
series of the “The Last
of Us,” a celebrated
third-person post-apoc-
alyptic adventure game.
That the project attract-
ed “Chernobyl” creator
Craig Mazin is for many
observers a sign of a
rising stature for video
game adaptations.
“I’ve noticed in the last
year that there is this
awareness that they’re
sitting on something that
is quite interesting and
not as mined as it should
be, or could be,” says
Roberts, who says he’s
approaching “Resident
Evil” the way he would a
Stephen King novel. “I’m
interested to see how all
the other movies tackle
it. It’s a fascinating time
for sure.”