Why do videogame movies nearly always fail?

ENNO - 551 days 20 hours ago

There is so much detail and care that fits into 50 hours of gameplay, that can NOT be squeezed into 1hr.45 mins...[cough]final fantasy[cough]

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SCFreelancer - 551 days 19 hours ago

The question is pretty obvious, its the same reason that keeps most companies from reaching a decent quality level with their games: lack of time.

These days developers have to release the game almost simultaneous with the movie no matter what the current state is. This makes it very hard to keep the level high and finish in time.

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Nitrowolf2 - 551 days 19 hours ago

probaly because we exspect the movie to be as good as the video game
i think its because most think that the movie games will feel the same as the game, you know get that same feeling as if you were playing it and see something awsome. But eventually it comes to a part in the movie where you couldnt even do that in the game. It like WTF.
I mean wat if in MG movie snake shot energy through his hand at the end to kill the boss, im not saying that would happen but it would make the movie some wat cr@ppy, caus epeople be like "you cant do that in the game"

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Sangria - 551 days 19 hours ago

If i remember well, some weeks ago in a TV show in France, there were a Hitman The Movie producer (or someone who worked for that movie) that was saying something clever: a game rarely reaches 2 millions units sold, but movie producers want a movie that make 20 millions of entries.

So because of that, video game-based movies always try to touch the widest audience, meaning more special effects, not complicated scenarios, etc... respecting less and less the video game.

In my opinion, the only movies that respected well video games were Mortal Kombat (sadly yes, technically it's a crappy movie but it's exactly as kitsch as the game, and it's the only movie where Christophe Lambert plays good enough) and Silent Hill.

But i'm pretty sure Hideo Kojima would be a great movie producer, he has a cinematographic sense that no one else has in video game industry. If one can do an epic movie, it's him.

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KobeT24 - 551 days 19 hours ago

Probably because the problem is that producers believe that they will have a built-in audience based on name recognition, and thus don't push writers to develop a good script, or push directors to keep the seams tight, lots of the actors sort of 'phone in' their performances, etc.

The problem is that everybody involved seems to just see the film as a moneymaker - tie in, and don't really give their heart and soul. Nobody's shooting for an oscar with these films.

They also dont seem to stick with the story. Example Resident Evil. The first one was similar enough but the second fell off track and the third had nothing to do with the games. Same with Doom. Just Hype.

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The gaming GOD - 551 days 19 hours ago

They fail partially because movie videogames aren't true to their roots.

They add extra characters, extra story aspects, and sometimes even unknown protagonists. In other words, they normally fail because they aren't canonical.

For the average movie goer, that's ok because they aren't aware that the story is wrong. However, for the gamer that KNOWS how to stories are meant to be told, that doesn't go over so well because it's not true to its roots.

But that's my opinion. Not fact.

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Gun_Senshi - 551 days 19 hours ago

Uwe Boll

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cmrbe - 551 days 18 hours ago

Any game has scripts as polish as most A grade movies. This is something that most people don't think off. MGS4.

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Asurastrike - 551 days 18 hours ago

Because games are meant to be played.

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Bubble Buddy - 551 days 18 hours ago

Maybe because they care more about selling the game, then even triyng on making a decent game.

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name - 551 days 18 hours ago

Silent hill and advent children were great movies

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IzKyD1331 - 551 days 18 hours ago

The Prince of Persia movie looks bleak (sure, Disney covering the movie will no doubt mean the special effects, actors and production values are spot on, but i doubt they'll capture the magic the videogame(s) had.
But im actually really excited about the upcoming Bioshock movie, mainly because i feel that more people should have the pleasure of experiencing this incredible story (assuming they stay true to the story that is)
Max Payne will either be done right or wrong, just have to wait and see (not alot of waiting though, its coming out this year)

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iamtehpwn - 551 days 17 hours ago

failed because it had NOTHING to do with final fantasy.

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LostChild - 551 days 17 hours ago

game based movies fail because they aren't taken seriously. They are only made to make a quick buck off the hype/popularity of a given game. Until game movies are taken seriously just like today's comicbook movies, they will continue to fail.

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AclayPS3 - 551 days 17 hours ago

Well, the Hitman movie based off of the Hitman video game series was a pretty good movie and is really one of the few video game based movies that I've seen.

Personally I think that Video Game movies end up failing a lot because there really isn't a lot of well known actors in video game based movies. If Gerard Butler played as Kratos in a God of War movie or if Tom Cruise played as someone in a video game based movie, it would be an instant hit. The majority of big, hot selling movies have well known A-list actors in them, and without big name actors in a movie, the movie wont be as much of a hit... however, there are a few exceptions because there are times when a movie may be released with actors you aren't familiar with (like 300) and it ends up being a hit.

Basically, if more A-list actors start getting Video Game Movie roles, more Video Game Movies will be hits.

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Fanboy Slaughter - 551 days 17 hours ago

Is going to be the latest casuality in bad VG movies. Becuase Sylvain White is directing it and Paul "game raper" Anderson wrote it. For those of you wondering about Sylvain White, he's the cinematic mastermind behind the smash hits "Stomp the Yard", and who could forget the straight-to-DVD "I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer"

Castlevania is doomed, to say the least.

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Baba1906 - 551 days 15 hours ago

well a game is for the most part good or bad depending on its gameplay, story and graphics. story and graphics can be done on a movie. but the gameplay just cant be brought alive. and i dont know it just gets me a bit mad if i see a ff movie without summonings, magic and big swords. spirit within could have been named different couse it just didnt have the ff feeling. i did enjoy it.

probably the movie series i enjoy although its not 1:1 to the games are, resident evil. i kinda liked it.

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Mitchell - 551 days 14 hours ago

Movies lack the depth of immersion that games provide. The crew tries to pack a storyline on average between 5-20 hours into an hour and a half. That's already a setup for an epic fail.

Then there's fan-service, which usually sucks firstly because the actors chosen rarely ever look like the game characters, because the game characters are made from scratch, based only off of the generic human template.

And many times it seems that the crew aren't big gamers themselves.

I say 10-15 of us save up some cash and form a studio. Let's nab Metal Gear Solid before it officially gets caught by money-hungry morons who know nothing of the source material except that kids will like it and a sex scene could fit.

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longbug - 551 days 11 hours ago

Good comment from Mitchell. I would also say that changing from one medium to another has always lessened the experience. How many times have I heard the book was better than the film. Same applies to games. A film should only use a game as inspiration and not try to emulate its content so obsessively. However, I'm one of the few who enjoyed Doom, if I wasn't a gamer, my perspective would have been different, for better or worse I don't know.

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Alcohog - 551 days 6 hours ago

Cloak and Dagger was an awesome flick for me when I was a little kid.

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gumgum99 - 551 days 1 hour ago

Either you got it for game based movies or not. Apparently their isnt a whole lot of the former. I'm sure someone will come along, take a game franchice that no one thought would ever translate so well(think toy based transformer's success) and totally blow our minds.

And i dont mean a franchice that can be done(like Halo) I mean a game that you wouldn't think twice about

Just hope it isnt pac-man. There is no hope for that movie.

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