The Hollywood Reporter: From books to plays to theme park rides, Hollywood has a long history of transforming successful intellectual properties into box-office hits.
But when it comes to video games, the track record is surprisingly dismal. Despite sales figures that have made film executives drool -- Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 grossed $1 billion in 15 days in December, and Modern Warfare sold $400 million in a single day in 2011 -- only one film based on a video game, 2001's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, has ever crossed the $100 million threshold domestically ($131 million).
3 comments:
This is an interesting trend. I didn't realize that video games turned movies were such a flop going that far back. I would think that it would have something to do with the fact that video games are designed for the audience to interact with while movies are made for the audience to merely observe. Taking a story line of something that is intended to be interactive and turning it into a movie is a large challenge, and I have a feeling people wouldn't respond to it as well. It's likely that Resident Evil did so well because it was a zombie movie during the phase of the zombie fad.
I would be interested in knowing whether or not the opposite it also true. I imagine that video games that are created from movies don't sell as well as other video games. Anyone playing the game would already know the story line, so it wouldn't be as interesting. Just food for thought.
To comment on jess's response, they frequently turn expected block buster movies into video games but they are rarely any good because they are made in less then a year and alot of corners are cut in the hope of releaseing a game under the same title in hopes that people will want to experience the movie in a new way.
The trick i think that works in making a video game to a movie is having the movie reveal something. Resident evil's first film was a different story line from the original games in that its a different characters journey in this zombie situation.
The recently released Halo 4 had a mini Series that aired weekly for the month and a half prior to the release of the game giving a great back story to the iconic video. the series was created by a combination of team members from 343 industries and a fan based company Machinima.
I agree with the article that video games are a untapped wealth of stories, positive profit margins and tons of fans instantly. Many of the modern video games come with massive back stories and very elaborate plot lines during the games. I am unsure of why this connection has not been overall very unsuccessful. My first instinct is because the rights are taken away from the video game companies and the names/ titles are just used for the movie. Personally I am a fan of the Resident Evil movie franchise and have been watching them for over ten years. (CRAZY)
In some way I do not see why video games companies just do not make feature films using their graphic technology and totally avoid movie industry. Or better yet gather together multiple video game companies to produce their own production company. There are many video game that I have invested time in and would totally go watch a movie about those characters. It is strange to say but you do become invested in your character when you have spent hours, days, or maybe even years helping your character save the day.
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