People are tired of watching the Avengers. But Hollywood has a backup plan: video games.
Seven major film releases in 2023 were based on video games, including “Grand Turismo” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
At least 19 television shows based on video games also debuted last year, according to Ampere Analysis, a London-based stock data firm, and the trend is not slowing down. “Bioshock” and “God of War” are now in the works on Amazon Prime and Netflix respectively.
Ampere found that Hollywood shifted its focus last year from comic books in movies and TV shows to video game adaptations like “The Last of Us.”
“The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” grossed $1.36 billion in 2023, the second largest margin behind “Barbie”. Both films surpass “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” Marvel’s latest installment in Phase Five of its Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, a media analytics company, told the Journal that movie studios are starting to realize that “the flowering may not be rosy” when it comes to are adaptations of comic books.
Superhero films grossed about $1 billion domestically in 2023, a 42% drop from the previous year, according to Comscore. Meanwhile, movies based on video games grossed $712.2 million, more than double the 2022 total, according to the outlet.
Despite this success, video game studios are cautious about film and television adaptations. Players constitute an engaged fan base. This represents an opportunity for Hollywood but also a challenge for video game studios, who are worried about the threat that adaptations pose to their brands.
“If they don’t like something, they will tell you,” Hélène Juguet, general director of Ubisoft Film & Television, told the Journal.
Netflix, for example, canceled “Resident Evil” after just one season in 2022. Fans of the popular video game series called it “the most boring and pointless trash” of the year with “nothing in common with his sources,” Newsweek reported. at the time.
The series’ low viewership scores could stem from “racist bombardment,” given that Lance Reddick — who is black — played a character who is normally white in video games, Forbes reported.
During a November 2023 earnings conference call, Take Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnik said game studios “run the risk of compromising the underlying intellectual property” during adaptations, according to the Journal.
“It’s a high bar,” Zelnik said on the call.
Video game adaptations generally get a bad reputation as schlocky narratives, especially from younger gamers. Members of the Electronic Gaming Association at the University of Miami told the school’s publication that they believe film adaptations do better with audiences when game creators have more say in the storytelling .
Game and movie studios are integrating into places like Discord and Reddit communities where they can see first-hand what young gamers think of their products, the Journal reported. A common finding is that players enjoy “Easter eggs” or little nods to the source material.
Adhan Razzaque, a 22-year-old software engineer from Austin, told the outlet that noticing Easter eggs in the 2022 Netflix series “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners,” for example, made him feel like the production team was considered a player during creation. the show.
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