Many video games have turned into movies and series. Some of excellent quality, some assistable, which have aged reasonably well, and some so bad that the best thing to do is to stay away from them. Here are 11 famous franchise titles that may or may not have performed well on TV and movie screens – including Netflix as well.
11 series and movies inspired by video games
This list is not in order of quality or preference and we did not highlight the best titles, because the vast majority of adaptations of video games for the big screen or small screen did not work very well. That said, let’s move on:
1. Super Mario Bros. (1993)
You can not get this list for another movie that is not Super Mario Bros. In addition to being the first movie adaptation of a game, it is often listed as the worst game-based movie of all time: a headless script, terrible scenarios, horrific costumes and lousy acting, where not even Dennis Hopper as “president” Koopa is saved. Not available in streaming.
2. Street Fighter (various)
The Street Fighter series has been adapted twice for cinema, both resulting in weak films. The first, Street Fighter: The Final Battle (1994) featured Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile, and Raul Julia (in his last role before he died) as villain M. Bison. The second, S treet Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009) featured actress Kristin Kreuk ( Smallville ) as the protagonist, as well as Neal McDonough ( Captain America: The First Avenger ) as M. Bison and Michael Clarke Dugan (Waiting of a Miracle, Daredevil ) as Balrog.
More recently, the franchise has been adapted into two live-action web series, Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist and Street Fighter: Resurrection, both more loyal to the original games.
3. Mortal Kombat (various)
Mortal Kombat has also been adapted several times. The first, Mortal Kombat: The Movie (1995) was a good work of action/martial arts, with Christopher Lambert as Raiden and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Shang Tsung, who recently lent his voice again and appearance to the character in Mortal Kombat 11. Even today, it is considered one of the best performed adaptations, given the limitations of the time. The same cannot be said of the sequence Mortal Kombat 2: The Annihilation (1997), without the same quality.
The game has also had a short movie ( Mortal Kombat: Rebirth ) and two series ( Mortal Kombat: Konquest and Mortal Kombat: Legacy ), and there is a new movie scheduled for release in 2021.
4. Resident Evil: The Cursed Guest (2002)
Capcom’s Survival Horror series was adapted for film by Paul WS Anderson (who directed the first Mortal Kombat ), but with one detail: Resident Evil’s plot: The Cursed Guest and its sequels was wrapped around a new protagonist called Alice, lived by actress Milla Jovovich ( The Fifth Element ), who a few years after the first movie, would later become the director’s wife. A lot of people don’t like movies for this divergence of games, but it is a fact that franchising is one of the most financially successful big screen game adaptations.
5. Terror in Silent Hill (2006)
The Silent Hill psychological horror series has been adapted twice for cinema: the first, Silent Hill Horror (2006) does not reproduce all game events faithfully (although it relies on Pyramid Head), but recreates similar situations in order to take better advantage of the language of cinema, especially the scene of nurses. The sequel, Silent Hill: Revelation (2012), was much less inspired than the previous one.
6. Tomb Raider: The Origin (2018)
Tomb Raider had two incarnations in film: the first, starring Angelina Jolie got two movies, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life (2003), both adapted faithfully games like they were before the reboot.
To bring the current Lara and the latest game trilogy plot to the big screen, Tomb Raider: The Origin (2018) features Alicia Vikander ( EX_Machina ) as the best version of the out-of-game explorer. The second film in production is promised for 2021.
7. Warcraft: The First Meeting of Two Worlds (2016)
The Warcraft Story: The First Meeting of Two Worlds follows the script of the franchise’s first game, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994) to the letter, down to the last detail. The film was a partnership between Legendary Pictures and developer Blizzard, is the most expensive among game-based games in history (costing $150 million). But despite this, it yielded far less than expected, not winning the general public and success only among fans of the games.
8. Double Dragon (1994)
A movie with the vibe of Ninja Surfers, the Robocop scene, and beating at will: you have Double Dragon. Based on the classic beat ’em ups he was unpretentious and even naive in his proposal, with a plot about a two-part medallion, which together confer great powers. The movie starring Robert Patrick ( Terminator 2) and Mark Dacascos (Crying Freeman) plays today as a light and fun Afternoon Session movie.
9. Alone in the Dark: The Awakening of Evil (2005)
If it is to choose a game-based movie produced and directed by the “myth” Uwe Boll, that is the worst of the worst. Alone in the Dark: Awakening Evil is not only one of the worst movie games ever made, but one of the worst movies ever, period. Mediocre performances, ridiculous effects and a bizarre script, which has nothing to do with the game, made the movie a resounding failure.
10. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
The Prince of Persia franchise, which had been popular since the 1990s, gained new breath from reboot in the following decade, in the Time Sands trilogy, on which the movie Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was based. Even with production from the same studio as the Pirates of the Caribbean (Disney) series, game creator Jordan Mechner as a consultant, and featuring Ben Kingsley and Jake Gyllenhaal in the cast, the film did not live up to expectations and is considered an adaptation short of games.
11. The Witcher (2019)
As much as The Witcher is based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s books (season one adapts the plots of The Last Desire and The Sword of Fate), not the history of the games, it is a noticeable fact that the recently released Netflix series owes much from its popularity to the CD Projekt Red trilogy of games, in particular The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015), which has been gaining more and more fans, basically with the series and the game feeding each other. This one, available on Netflix, in season 1.