The Game-to-TV-and-Film Pipeline Is… Flowing

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Studios are increasingly mining videogames for characters and stories to bring to life in TV shows and films, particularly as audiences grow tired of story lines based on comic books. A key part of success is appealing to die-hard fans and new audiences without betraying the original game.

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An article by Sarah Krouse in the Wall Street Journal explores this trend with comments from several executives in gaming and film. Gamers are a highly engaged bunch, Helene Juguet, managing director of Ubisoft Film & Television, tells the WSJ. “If they don’t like something, they will tell you.”

Hollywood is commissioning more video game adaptations, and the reasons are clear: Movies based on video game adaptations and released broadly in theaters grossed $712.2 million at the domestic box office last year, more than double what they brought in the prior year, according to ComScore. Superhero film adaptations, meanwhile, brought in about $1 billion domestically, down 42% from the prior year.

Video games offer fresh characters and new worlds that can appeal to young children and their parents — like Sonic and Mario’s adventures — or teenagers and adults seeking mature story lines, such as those in HBO’s hit series, The Last of Us.

In addition, a generation of gamers are now in creative positions across Hollywood. Yet failure to get the translation to screen right does no one any favors. Paramount’s first stab at bringing Sonic the Hedgehog to the screen faced a backlash over the trailer, prompting the studio to quickly conduct focus groups and hire a new animator to alter the character’s appearance so that it appealed to die-hard fans.

“Every design now is vetted within an inch of its life,” Marc Weinstock, president of worldwide marketing and distribution at Paramount, tells the WSJ.

It’s why game developers and fans are often now deeply involved in adaptations, ensuring that the end product honors the source material.

But it’s not exactly a two-way street. Film and TV producers want games more than game developers want Hollywood. While few films make $1 billion, hit video games can generate several billions of dollars in sales over their lifetimes, which means that for some game makers, film and TV adaptations are more trouble than they are worth.

“In failure, we run the risk of compromising the underlying intellectual property. So, it’s a high bar,” said Strauss Zelnick, head of Grand Theft Auto developer Take-Two Interactive Software.