Stop Making Videogame Movies. Make TV Shows

It needs to be said: Hollywood needs to give up on making video game movies. In the last few years alone:

Need for Speed: Meh

Assassin’s Creed: Trash

Prince of Persia: Ok-ish

Resident Evil: Why are there so many when they’re all mediocre at best?

The adaptations that are about to release or in some form of pre-production don’t give me much hope either:

Rampage: Why?

Minecraft: Why?

Sonic: Please, no.

Tomb Raider: I’m actually interested in this because its based on the new gritty releases of the game not the over sexualized version, but my expectations aren’t that high.

The standard of good movie adaptation based on a video game has been Mortal Kombat and that movie is 22 years old. The problem is that video game campaigns are set up to be at least 6 hours of important world building and execution that gives the player an immersive experience. In movies, you get at most 2.5 hours to build the world, introduce character motives, formulate an engaging plot, cram in easter eggs from the video game that are both obvious to fans of the games and make sense to those that aren’t familiar with the game. Hollywood is terrible at trying to get all of those components right. It’s why Warcraft didn’t fair well in the US Box office, at least. It did its best numbers in China.

Movies that take inspirations from video games have feared better however. Tron, Wreck-It Ralph and Scott Pilgrim vs The World all tell their own stories and use video game tropes or licensed materials and have great fan followings. Pixels ruins that run but I more blame Adam Sandler for that.

Instead, video games should be on TV. Some can be limited run series, others can be season long. The Division, Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid, Assassin’s Creed, Half Life are some of the titles in preproduction that would thrive by having longer time to develop a story and character. CGI effects in TV have gotten better for the budgets they maintain and none of the titles above have special effects that isn’t already used in another TV show. The games with more gritty tones can find a home on premium cable networks like SHOWTIME or HBO for the limited run shows.

The mindset of Hollywood has to change when it comes to video game titles in different media. We don’t need everything as a movie and not everything works as a movie. But if they do want to pursue something live-action, let it live on TV where it may be easier for fans to access it or have more freedom of when they want to watch it and spare us the disappointment of missed box office projections and bad writing.