Video Games to Movies: Not a Successful Transition

Video games and movies. These two markets would seem like they would be tightly interwoven, two that would promote each other and thrive in each other's markets. However, video games being turned into movies have never seemed to turn out quite how they should. The track record for these transitions has been rocky to say the least, including sub par movies such as Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Super Mario Bros., Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, etc., etc.

Where do movie makers go wrong? That is a difficult question, but it usually involves the fact that there is too little information to build off of. When a company wants a movie made off of a game, they usually want that movie to be based strictly on the material in that game. Needless to say, games aren't designed at the core to be movies and usually it is difficult to draw a lot of information out of a video game and turn that information into a movie.

This problem only compounds when considering that most fans of the video game will hate the movie right away since they feel it will only ruin the name of the game. This immediately creates and anti-movie movement and this cuts out the original fan base of the title. Additionally, casting a movie based on a video game can be incredibly difficult since no one can ever agree who would be perfect for the role. Needless to say, this creates a lot of problems in the long run.

Yet, despite all of this there are still countless numbers of games that are being turned into movies. Rainbow Six, Doom, Spy Hunter, Halo, and God of War are only a few of the games that are currently being turned into feature films. The question is, will these movies be able to break the mediocrity and set themselves free from the stereotypes? Will these finally be successful when so many others have failed? That remains to be seen.