After more than a decade of unprecedented dominance in Hollywood, the reign of superhero comic book adaptations may finally be coming to an end. The once impenetrable Marvel Cinematic Universe experienced its first disappointment at the box office Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumaniaand returning Disney CEO Bob Iger has put the brakes on a nonstop parade of forgettable streaming shows.
DC Films has entered a rebuilding phase after the much-anticipated Dwayne Johnson film Black Adam failed to make a splash, and the CW’s sprawling Arrowverse is coming to an end after a total of 41 seasons across eight television titles. While the comic book movie may recover in the years to come, its place in the zeitgeist is rapidly being taken over by another arena maligned by older generations: video games.
Has the curse been lifted from video game movies?
HBO Max
With the huge success of HBO’s The Last of Us and the marketing blitz surrounding the upcoming animated film The Super Mario Bros. movie, it’s clear that there is no longer a stigma against video game adaptations on film and television. Last year’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2 earned over $400 million worldwide. Even if they’re rarely critical darlings, they’re no longer inherently risky at the box office. Titles ranging from Borderlands to Space Channel 5 are currently in development for the big screen, allowing Hollywood studios to do what they do best: cash in on established brands and let organized fan communities do half of their marketing for them.
This time, however, they will try to appeal to an existing audience that is not only larger, but also more diverse in their interests. The comic book medium is home to all kinds of genres, but the American comic book market is dominated by two companies, Marvel and DC, that primarily trade in superheroes, making “comic book movie” and “superhero movie” practically interchangeable terms. For example, there are now three Ant-Man movies, but none are based on the Hernandez brothers’ Love and Rockets comics, which have been running since 1982.
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Video games have no such genre monopoly, and popular games run the gamut from fantasy epics to military shooters to cozy small-town misadventures. A Call of Duty movie would be nothing like an Animal Crossing movie, and both have a good chance of being made. That’s why the prospect of a boom in video game movies is a welcome change from the monotony of the superhero era, which, judging by its lukewarm reception quantum mania and outright failure Shazam! Wrath of the Godsseems to be over.
However, as any gamer will tell you, not every video game lends itself easily to the narrative film form, including some of the most recognizable titles in the medium. For example, 138 million people downloaded Candy Crush Saga last year, but its superficial story doesn’t quite have the makings of a cinematic masterpiece. Minecraft is a wildly popular open-world game with no story whatsoever, and its planned adaptation languished in development hell for nearly a decade as a parade of screenwriters and directors failed to find a vision for the film. However, just because some hit games can’t be directly adapted to the big screen doesn’t mean that movie studios will simply leave that money on the table — it just means they’ll have to get creative.
A movie about Tetris, but not based on Tetris
Apple TV+
Tetris, the new film from Apple Original Films and director Jon S. Baird, is the story of one of the most popular and enduring video games of all time, but it is not an adaptation of the video game. Instead, it’s part of another popular genre in Hollywood: the business biopic. These are films or miniseries that delve into the lives of famous entrepreneurs and, therefore, famous products. In 2022, streamers and premium cable networks released miniseries about the shady entrepreneurs behind Uber, WeWork, and Theranos. This year we’ll see a handful of feature films about the invention of consumer products like the BlackBerry and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
Tetris is such a film, an admittedly exaggerated tale of how Dutch entrepreneur Henk Rogers promoted Soviet developer Alexey Pajitnov’s perfect puzzle game to worldwide ubiquity. Rogers is the main character of the film, played by Kingsman star Taron Egerton, but he is not the main attraction. Undoubtedly, the film’s star power comes from its title, which belongs to a video game with unprecedented mass. Baird, Apple, and producer Matthew Vaughn have found a way to adapt an inflexible, eye-popping mid-budget drama in an incredibly competitive streaming economy where movies live or die based on their thumbnail appeal. Taron Egerton with an amazing 80s mustache won’t get much attention, but everyone has heard of Tetris.
A future with fewer superheroes and more video game movies?
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If the Tetris movie is deemed a success (although that may be hard to gauge for a streaming-only release), it could provide a roadmap for how movie or TV studios can take advantage of video game brands that don’t lend themselves to direct story adaptations. Farmville there is no sign of an exciting family adventure, but could it be the title of a business drama about the rise and fall of the modern freemium game? Is Sega’s new film division smart to shell out $20 million for a console wars movie? How long before we get a bombshell style movie about scandals within Blizzard?
If the increasing marketability of video game adaptations tells us anything, it’s that gamers have matured to the point where they are as interested in the business of video games as they are in the games themselves. Interweaving the stories of the real-life showbiz behind the games industry within the likely flood of direct adaptations would not only be a welcome change of pace, but would also enhance the viewer’s understanding and enjoyment of games and game adaptations in general. If video game movies are indeed to be the new new western, the inevitable trend that defines the decade, such an approach could prove profitable for studios and far less exhausting for audiences.
You can stream Tetris on Apple TV+ right now.
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Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn