From Consoles to Hollywood: The Journey Ends
August 2nd 2008 23:59
Category: C
Silent Hill maintains the title for being one of the best, if not the best, video game turned movie. Will there be anymore video game movies to come that are going to out do it?
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The Journey Begins.
The Good.
The Bad.
The Ugly.
The Future?
The Good.
The Bad.
The Ugly.
The Future?
For the past month this website has taken a look at the craze Hollywood has had for the past ten years in turning popular video games into movies. Let’s take a brief look at the categories we have looked at…
The Good.
There have been good video games that have been, surprisingly, turned into very good movies. There are actually directors out there and writers out there who know the game’s storyline, who know the characters of the game, and who know the atmosphere the game creates. Some games we looked at were Silent Hill and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. All the movies were very close to how the original games were and it was a shame that other directors couldn’t follow through with these shining examples.
The Bad.
There have been movies that may have stayed true to the “concept” of the video game that they were based on but due to the director adding a “creative twist” to them, they came off as really bad. They weren’t terrible, they just sucked. Examples are like how the Super Mario Brothers movie was based in some Blade Runner-like world or how Mortal Kombat: Annihilation attempted to add in over thirty characters within a minute. Don’t get me wrong these movies were ok – they weren’t good but they were ok – but trying to change the storyline or the atmosphere of the video game made for a bad movie.
The Ugly.
These were the terrible pieces of trash that many people try to forget, but this website manages to keep the bad memories refreshed in their minds. These “ugly” movies are so hideous that by having them placed in the “Bad” category would be an insult to the movies already in there. “Ugly” video game movies are a result of what happens when a director attempts to completely change everything about the movie with the only thing in common between the video game and the movie is the title. Need a few good examples? Go watch the majority of Uwe Boll’s movies that are based on video games.
We also looked at some movies that were coming out in the near future that would base themselves off recent video games. The question still remains: If so many video game turned movies are bad why keep making them? Let’s look at some statistics and see how well video game movies have done at the box office:
Silent Hill: I mentioned it as being the best video game movie out there and fans of the movie couldn’t agree anymore. The director stayed true to everything about the game – besides having the main character being female as opposed to a male – and it made for a very successful movie. With a budget of $50 Million the movie pulled in almost $100 Million world side which is pretty good for a video game movie.
Resident Evil: This movie wasn’t well liked by fans since they changed too many things about the movie but to others who didn’t know that Resident Evil was a video game, it seemed to be ok. The first movie had a budget of $33 Million and pulled in over $100 Million world wide. The second movie had a budget of $45 Million and made over $129 Million world wide. The third movie had the same budget of $45 Million and made even more than the second globally – raking in almost $150 Million. In the end it is all about the money that the movie makes and no how much the fans of the video game hate the movie.
Mortal Kombat: As mentioned in the previous posts the first Mortal Kombat movie was great – it stayed true to the storyline and the characters of the video game and was well received by fans. The second movie, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, was hated by fans for the rushed job. The figures didn’t lie about which movie was better with Mortal Kombat making over $122 Million world wide and MK:A just made over $50 Million.
Not every video game movie has been as successful and these movies. Any Uwe Boll movie that comes up either barely slightly makes over the budget or bombs miserably at the box office. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within bombed badly and lost almost half of its budget at the box office. DOA: Dead or Alive had a budget of over $30 million and only managed to make $7 million world wide. Most of these movies are the ones that I considered bad or ugly – with the exception of a few.
What is it about Hollywood’s craze of turning video game into movies? The majority of the movies that have been released end up flopping badly and are slammed by both critics and fans. There are only a few movies that are both praised by critics and by fans that make a lot of money. If most of the video games movies out there are so bad and don’t make a lot of money for movie companies, why do we still get them?
Are people just trying to capitalise on a successful video game that’s extremely popular at the time? It would appear so for many of the movies out there but some movies were made over ten years when the original game was released. Sometimes a video game is turned into a movie when the video game hasn’t even been heard of before (see Uwe Boll’s films). Generally these movies bomb but sometimes movies based on very popular video game bomb as well. If 90% of the video game movies are going to fail at the box office, why bother making them in the first place?
Maybe these directors actually loved the game so much that they wanted to share their love for the game with others by turning it into a movie. Maybe companies turn video games so capitalize on the popularity of the game at the time. The answer may not be fully known but as long as there is a general interest from the fans of the video game, I think movies game companies will try their luck. Sometimes they manage to do a really awesome job but most of the time – sadly – the video game fails terribly as a movie.
In my honest opinion I don’t think video games should ever be turned into a movie. No mater how good the movie might come out it will never be as great as the original video game. Video games allow players to control the destiny of the characters they play as and explore massive lands. Movies are like trains; all we have to do it sit down and allow them to follow their tracks. Nothing changes when we watch a movie the second time but things do change the second time we play a video game. We may want to beat the game even faster or just slow down the pace and do every single thing possible.
As long as video games are popular movies companies are always going to attempt to capitalize on their success. A movie maybe good, bad or just plain terrible but what do movie companies care? In the end they don’t care about satisfying our high expectations for the video games we love, they only care about how much money they will make from the movie. All us video game geeks and nerds can hope for is that directors come along and actually make good movies from the video games we love. It maybe rarely seen but there is proof actual good video game movies exist, it’s just a shame they’ve been overshadowed by such terrible ones from the past.
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