Video Games to Silver Screen - Risky But Promising ?
Movies based on video games is a risky genre when it comes to
commercial success. However over the years more and more movies have been made
which are based on video games. The first ever movie based on a video game was
Super Mario Bros. based on legendary game Super Mario. This movie was released
in 1993. However this movie was a big commercial failure. The movie had flashy
sets and special effects but it had a weak story line.
Then several more video games transitioned to big screen as
movies like Double Dragon (1994), Street Fighter (1994) and Mortal Kombat (1995).
However Mortal Kombat was the first movie based on video games which achieved
the commercial success, earning 122 Million dollars worldwide over a budget of
18 million dollars.
However overall commercial success has eluded the movies
based on video games. In recent years, the box office performance of such
movies has improved slightly but still makers have been unable to crack the
right formula of turning video games into blockbuster hits.
The animated version of Super Mario Bros released in 2023
remains the most successful video game movie ever, earning 1.36 Billion
dollars. Warcraft (2016), Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019), Sonic the Hedgehog
(2020), Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) are some of the other video game movies
which did well on box office. Resident Evil remains the highest earning movie
franchise based on video games.
Despite challenges regarding the critical reception and box
office performance, future of movies made on video games looks quite promising.
More and more movies and even TV series are in pipeline, such as Minecraft,
Borderlands, sequel to Mortal Kombat and Fallout.
With bigger budgets, better storytelling, and massive fan
bases, video game movies and TV shows will gain more acceptance in the coming
years.
