It all began in 1993 when a beloved plumber stepped out of the confines of Nintendo’s console and onto the silver screen: Super Mario Bros. was the first video game turned into a movie – and would not be the last, despite its abysmal critical reception. Years of poor video game adaptations followed in its footsteps. Production studios kept trying and gamers kept hoping. It seemed there would never be a movie or TV show based on a video game that would actually be well received.
Until, finally, in 2019, a fuzzy yellow fella entered theaters and took the world by storm. Followed by a blue hedgehog racing onto the silver screen and a whole slew of TV shows and movies set in video game worlds, a new era had begun. Now, we can actually look forward to the video game adaptations headed our way.
The endless struggles of video game adaptations in the past
Over the decades, video games have captured the hearts of people from around the world. It seems, turning these popular IPs into movies would have been a straightforward task. But bringing video games to the big screen turned out to be a big challenge. One bad video game adaptation followed the next, none of them was quite able to capture the essence of the base material on the silver screen in a way that would satisfy audiences. From Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) and Wing Commander (1999) to Alone in the Dark (2005), Silent Hill (2012), and the sub-par Resident Evil movies, none of them lived up to the games they were based on.
While gamers got used to unsatisfying video game movies, adaptations of movies and TV shows in games always seemed to work much better. Many games are based on Hollywood productions and allow gamers to jump into their worlds in an interactive way. Some of the most popular games are based on the space opera Star Wars, with titles such as Jedi: Fallen Order, and Star Wars Battlefront capturing players’ hearts. Many games based on, for instance, James Bond, Mad Max, Alien, and Star Trek as well as adaptations of Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead have all been well received. Some of these have even earned their space in traditional casino games, with online slots depicting various movies and TV shows on their reels. Some of the best online casinos India as rated by experts offer a large library of slot games with all types of themes. With games such as Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, and Jumanji online slots, movies and shows of all kinds come to life in a new way in traditional games. Clearly, movies have earned their spot in the gaming space – and now, games finally also belong on the big screen.
A yellow detective and blue hedgehog turned the tides
Now, more people who grew up playing video games sit in director chairs – and it shows. In May 2019 Pokémon rang in a new era: Detective Pikachu, based on Nintendo’s beloved video game series, broke the curse and became a critical and commercial success with positive reviews by audiences and critics. While most probably believed this would be a one-off event, the yellow fella was followed by the blue blur speeding into theaters and the audiences’ hearts: Sonic The Hedgehog was released in 2020 and became an unexpected box office hit, with its sequel released in 2022 adding to that success.
In the meantime, a whole litany of video game adaptations has graced both the big screen and home theaters, with a lot more on the way in the near future. Series such as Arcane, Halo, The Cuphead Show, and the recently released anime Cyberpunk: Edgerunners were huge hits on streaming services. Following their successes, there’s now a wave of video game adaptations rolling toward us, seemingly trying to make up for years of bad productions. Just some of the movies and shows in the pipeline are The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Borderlands, and more which will all bring the beloved video games to theaters and streaming services.
We have entered a new era: the age of good movies and TV shows based on video games. To celebrate this amazing feat, 2023 will see the release of a brand-new Super Mario Bros. movie – three decades after the first one. Let’s hope it won’t buck the trend and capture audiences’ hearts just like the games. Wahoo, here we go!
