Highlights
- Video game movies aimed at kids tend to be the most successful, as proven by the recent Super Mario Bros. Movie, Sonic The Hedgehog, and Detective Pikachu.
- Adult-oriented video game movies tend to fail, lacking the financial success and critical acclaim of major franchises like the MCU.
- The silliness of most video games makes them perfect for kid's movies, embracing simplistic plots that avoid taking themselves too seriously while offering entertainment and heart.
There are only a few things that split the opinions of both video game and film fans the way that movie adaptations of famous games do. The concept of video game movies has only existed since the early nineties, but ever since the release of the live-action Super Mario Bros. movie in 1993, gamers have wished for their favorite games to get some kind of big-screen treatment at some point. One thing that everyone knows is that no video game is adapted to the big screen without a whole host of issues.
Making a truly successful adaptation has proven rather difficult for Hollywood over the last few years. Starting a new series based on a popular character or world sounds like a safe bet, but it’s rare for movie adaptations of video games to be received all that well by critics or make a ton of money. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been major successes, especially recently, but there is something that many of those successes have in common.
Video Game Movies Aimed At Kids Are The Most Successful
One of the clearest trends in the entire video game movie genre is that the ones made specifically for kids are the ones that tend to be the most beloved. The most recent smash hit to prove this point is none other than Nintendo’s newest attempt at a Super Mario Bros. film, this time, animated. Calling the film a success would be putting it mildly considering this video game movie managed to make over one billion dollars at the box office globally. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a creative romp that sees Mario and Luigi being transported to the Mushroom Kingdom, where everyone’s favorite Italian plumber has to save the day from the goofy but villainous Bowser. While that may sound simplistic, it’s the level of simplicity mixed with clear love and care that was put into every minute of the film that led to it being a hit among kids and adults alike.
Then there are the two Sonic The Hedgehog films from 2020 and 2022 following the blue blur as he adjusts to life on Earth and battles with the always-nefarious Dr. Robotnik. Once again, these films are filled with nostalgia making them suitable viewings for people of all ages, and leading them to gross over three-hundred million and four-hundred million globally. Before Mario took the crown, the highest-grossing animated film based on a video game was 2019’s Detective Pikachu. Helmed by Ryan Reynolds as the voice of Pikachu, parents were bound to be more likely to take their kids to see the movie even if Pokemon wasn’t a major factor in their own childhood.
Video Game Movies Aimed At Adults Tend To Fail
While there certainly have been video game movies for adults that have been relative successes, none have managed to be successful on par with major franchises like the MCU. Additionally, even when these kinds of movies do see financial success, the quality of the film is often highly debated or outright panned by critics like in the case of 2016’s Warcraft. Despite seemingly performing well in places like China, the additional costs of the film, especially marketing, make Warcraft a much less successful film overall. There are a lot of reasons why these kinds of movies tend to fail, and it’s easy to see when looking at some of the biggest failures.
2005’s Doom had a dynamite cast in Dwayne Johnson, Rosamund Pike, and Karl Urban, was based on the popular first-person shooter Doom, and had a simple plot that anyone could have enjoyed, and yet it still bombed. The film failed to gross sixty million worldwide while it cost more than that to make it alone. The fact that the movie was panned by both critics and fans due to the abysmal story, and the fact that the movie was rated R both created the conditions for a smaller audience and in return, a lower box office. The most diehard Doom fans were likely to be in attendance, but a singular fanbase wasn’t enough to bring this movie to success.
2015’s attempt to revive the Hitman series with Hitman: Agent 47 was hated by most people who saw it, though its low budget managed to keep it from being a total flop grossing over eighty million dollars on a thirty-five million dollar budget. 2016’s Assassin’s Creed wasn’t much better. Despite having Michael Fasbender in a prominent role, the film failed to live up to box office expectations and critical hype, leaving the movie a massive failure and getting a potential sequel immediately pulled. Doom, Hitman: Agent 47, and Assassin’s Creed all fall into the same trap that many flops do, overly serious takes on incredibly consolidated stories that most kids are unable to go see.
The Silliness Of Most Games Makes Them Work As Kids' Movies
It may seem strange to some, but simply how silly video games are in general makes them perfect for being adapted into kid's movies. Think about how bizarre the concept of Mario is, he’s an Italian plumber who winds up in a land filled with walking mushroom creatures and turtles that are capable of warfare, and then it falls on him to help save the kingdom and its princess from a giant turtle that breathes fire. Throw in Donkey Kong, some Mario Kart, plenty of references to the source material, and power-ups from the games that play a role in the film, and the recipe for a silly kid's movie is complete. Most games are as strange as Super Mario if they’re broken down into their individual parts, so if more people embraced that and got over the fact that gritty stories aren’t the only ones that the world needs, the box office would surely be dominated by more video game movies.
Even both the Sonic The Hedgehog movies and the Detective Pikachu movie embrace their silliness. That’s not to say that the movies lack any kind of interesting story that’s worth getting invested in. It’s actually the contrary, the silliness of the games allows for simplistic plots that can avoid taking themselves too seriously while also offering a lot of heart and entertainment. There isn’t a moment in Detective Pikachu that feels like the general audience is gate-kept from understanding something, but instead, there are worthwhile easter eggs for devoted fans that have no real relevance outside of a moment to point at the screen. With the world and all the people around it going through new struggles each and every day, maybe it’s time for a bit more silliness in video game movies, even if that means the world will keep getting them in the form of child-friendly movies.