Almost anyone can list a few of the many book-to-movie adaptations that we all know and love. Between Stephen King’s horror novels and Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games, hundreds of books have made their way onto screens and dominated the film industry. But, in recent years, video game movie adaptations have become very prevalent.
As far back as the early 90’s, video games have marked their place in the film industry; however, these early adaptations were poorly received. The live-action Super Mario Bros movie, released in 1993, was so negatively reviewed that it nearly drove video game-to-movie adaptations into the ground.
This fact seems shocking now, considering the success of the new animated Super Mario Bros (2023) movie. As it broke video-game box office records this year and nearly surpassed Frozen 2 in revenue, the video game-to-movie adaptation world appears to be taking a turn for the better.
Not only has The Super Mario Bros Movie been a hit in theaters, but the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movies have achieved record-breaking sales as well. Released in 2020, the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie broke video-game movie records in ticket sales while making room for the highly anticipated sequel that followed in 2022. Many other movies such as Wreck it Wralph and Angry Birds have shown success also, by targeting the nostalgia of retro-games.
It seems as though the perfect formula for video game-to-movie adaptations has been discovered. With a young, targeted audience, classic video game characters, a simple action or adventure plot, and a few well known actors, these movies create competition with book-to-movie adaptations that have ruled the film industry and box office for decades upon decades.
The only remaining question is, can these adaptations maintain record breaking success in other genres? Referring to previous examples of horror video game-to-movie adaptations, such as the many Resident Evil movies from the early 2000’s and 2010’s, there isn’t much proven potential. These films, which were more adult-targeted horror adaptations, were not very successful or appreciated by fans. However, many would say that these movies are too outdated of an example to have any merit.
One of the reasons that horror video game-to-movie adaptations may lack success is that they leave room for a very small audience. Most horror films have a high age rating, restricting access to younger audiences. Additionally, there may not be many adults interested in a video game series.
Recently, the HBO series The Last of Us has obtained popularity among critics and fans of the video game series. Because this show contains gruesome depictions of a post-apocalyptic world, its success shows signs of hope for video games of similar genres. Although The Last of Us was such a positively received horror and drama series, the tv show formatting makes it hard to tell if this success would translate to movies.
Luckily, the upcoming and highly anticipated Five Nights at Freddy’s film will be a great way to view the success, failure, or mediocrity of video game-to-movie adaptations in the horror genre. We will have to wait for this Halloween to see!
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