Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal as Ellie and Joel in HBO's The Last of Us. Sonic from 2020's Sonic the Hedgehog
Recent video game adaptations such as The Last of Us have further proved how the genre's future lies in the medium of TV rather than film adaptations. For many years, cinema was often seen as having a curse over it. That curse was aimed squarely at video game adaptations, stating that this particular type of film was destined to fail in terms of quality and critical reception.
While some video game movies in recent years have certainly bucked this trend, contrary to popular belief, it remains clear that the future of video game adaptations lies on TV. More so than their film counterparts, TV adaptations of video games have gone above and beyond in terms of quality. This proves how most video games should be adapted into TV shows, rather than the frequently poor movie versions.
Why Video Game Movies Have Struggled
Firstly, it is worth stating that several video game movies have done well commercially. Films such as Rampage, Warcraft, The Angry Birds Movie, the Resident Evil franchise, and the various Tomb Raider adaptations have all performed well at the worldwide box office. However, the box office has rarely been considered the way video game movies have failed, with the quality of the films and their respective poor critical reception largely being where movies based on video games have struggled.
These aforementioned movies have often received mixed-to-negative critical responses. Rampage and Warcraft, for example, received critic ratings of 51% and 29% respectively, despite the latter currently holding the record of the highest-grossing video game movie of all time. The Angry Birds Movie received a rotten score also, sitting at 43%. The Resident Evil movie franchise was also a critical failure, with the series never receiving a score higher than 37% after seven installments. Finally, the Tomb Raider films featuring Angelina Jolie received 20% and 24% respectively, before the 2018 reboot received a critic score of 53%.
These are only a few examples from the vast video game movie adaptation catalog, yet each one has failed in terms of its critical reception. The reason for this largely stems from a failure to adapt the stories of the games successfully. This, or adapting a game that did not warrant an adaptation in the first place, such as Rampage or Angry Birds, has often been the reason for video game movies' struggles. That being said, most of these films have been well-received by audiences for one reason or another, primarily the well-known IPs of the games on which they are based, such as The Angry Birds Movie.
That also is not to say every video game adaptation has been a critical failure, with recent years seeing a notable upturn in this department. This began with Pokémon: Detective Pikachu and The Angry Birds Movie 2 in 2019 which saw critical ratings of 68% and 73% respectively. This meant that 2019 was the first time any Hollywood movie based on a video game received a fresh rating, which only continued in 2020 and 2022 with Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Finally, 2021's Werewolves Within saw a critic rating of 86%, solidifying the upturn in movie adaptations successes.
Source: screenrant.com
