The growing adaptation of video game movies
Warner Brothers Pictures made an announcement that a new Mortal Kombat movie would be available to watch in theaters and on HBO Max on April 16. This will be the third movie based on the popular gaming franchise.
However, Mortal Kombat is not the first video game franchise to have a movie created. That honor goes to the Super Mario Bros. movie that came out in 1993. More recently, the video game-to-movie trend seems to be growing. Notable franchises like Minecraft, Borderlands, Uncharted, and Five Nights at Freddie’s have made announcements that a movie Is forthcoming.
Movies based on video games are often not well-received by critics. The highest received live-action video game movie was Detective Pikachu with a rating of 68% on Rotten Tomatoes and 53% on Metacritic. The highest animated video game movie was The Angry Birds Movie 2 with a 73% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 60% on Metacritic. Video game fans have also had mixed feelings about seeing their favorite franchises hitting the big screen. Jordan Castillo, a fan of the Borderlands franchise said, “It’s a movie that I want to like but afraid I am gonna hate it.”
Although many fans enjoy both video games and movies, the mediums are quite different. Movies tell a story that viewers watch for long periods of time but are not changed by viewers’ actions. Video games give players more agency when it comes to the actions that happen on screen. Some video games also tell elaborate stories as players progress through the games. Larry Kenshalo, a student at Fresno City, stated, “The most successful video game movies are going to be those that have a simple premise and little story. That way a movie can actually build on top of it.”
Both Detective Pikachu and The Angry Birds Movie 2 followed this premise and were well-received by audiences. The Super Mario Bros. movie, in contrast, received complaints for not staying close enough to the video game series.
Gerald Miguel, a student at Fresno City said, “I think that it’s better to make more movies into video games than the other way around.”
In a similar vein, comic book movies were not that well-received when they were first made. Now, however, they are a $60 billion industry. Only time will tell if video game movies will become the next movie blockbuster.