Good gravy, there are a lot of live-action video game movies and shows, either out now or in production. Some of these make some degree of sense like God of War, Uncharted, The Witcher, and other such stuff you could realistically make with production on par with something like Game of Thrones. Others, though, are major reaches, to put the matter lightly. There are live-action projects in development for games like Borderlands, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and Minecraft. Minecraft. How does that even work? Are all of the actors going to wear boxes over their heads?
As happy as I am to see my favorite medium of storytelling and entertainment reach the wider masses, why does it have to be in a live-action manner? Even the good recent video game productions like Sonic the Hedgehog or Detective Pikachu were partially live-action when being animated probably would’ve worked much better. I’m starting to worry that we’re heading for a similar video game collapse to the one we endured in the 90s.
Didn’t We Already Learn Our Lesson About Live-Action Game Adaptations?
For those of you too young to remember, there was a gaggle of decisively failed live-action video game adaptations in theaters back then. Starting with the live-action Super Mario Bros. in ’93, nearly every live-action movie based on a game, including Double Dragon, Street Fighter, Wing Commander, and more was an absolute box office desert. Don’t even get me started on Uwe Boll’s run of films, he’s the reason we’re never getting a proper House of the Dead movie. Even the ones that did okay like the Resident Evil movies only did so because they were mindless popcorn movies, not because they had much of anything to do with their source material.
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TV and film these days are more receptive to stuff like high fantasy, a la Game of Thrones, which is why some game stories could do okay in a live-action format. For a lot of games, though, it kind of seems like studios are almost ashamed to embrace them as they are. Things can’t be wacky or cartoony, they have to be gritty and serious, or it’s not a “real movie.” A good example of that was 2020’s Monster Hunter movie, which I’m guessing most of you already forgot about, and rightfully so.
Expression, or Lack Thereof
In a similar vein to animation, there are some things you can do well in the realm of video games that just don’t translate to a live-action format. It’s the same problem as trying to make live-action adaptations of cartoons; part of the charm of animation, 2D or 3D, is being able to express certain things in a more exaggerated and fun way. I won’t say live-action is the antithesis of fun, but it’s a heck of a lot harder to have the kind of fun that you get out of most video games.
I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir here. Barring a few notable exceptions and late-stage acceptances, most game fans don’t want live-action adaptations of their favorite games due to these exact concerns. If that’s the case, though, then why do studios keep trying to do them? I don’t know the answer to that, but hopefully, they figure it out before the prospect of good video game movies gets scuttled for another 30 years.
