Jumping on the comic book adaptation craze, Hollywood has tried multiple times to adapt a popular video game for the big screen, where the film version can sometimes make money, but still almost always results in a dull and disappointing product. The reasoning for this seems clear: stretched out video game narratives don’t lend themselves well to condensed plots—are you really going to make a Grand Theft Auto or Metal Gear movie fit neatly into an hour-and-a-half? Nah.
On the opposite side of that same coin, simple plots that provide a basic backdrop for games are no easier to translate for screenwriters. Try as you might to make it work, a lizard capturing a princess so she can be saved by her boyfriend after he wraps up his 9-to-5 unclogging toilets is not a plot that can hold people’s attention, unless it involves challenging gameplay and super-tight controls.
Regardless of those major hurdles, studios keep trying. What results is a plethora of forgettable titles racking up about a 22 percent (or lower) on Rotten Tomatoes.
The reverse, turning movies to video games, can still be dicey, but seems to be much more likely to provide exceptional results. This was proven by Rockstar when they made The Warriors kind of out of nowhere, more than 25 years after it came out, or (most famously for people my age) Rare, when they opted to take a two-year-old Bond movie and make Goldeneye, which turned into a ‘90s gaming magnum opus, talked about on the playground by dorks and non-dorks alike.
There’s money to be made by digging into cinema’s past, where you can snatch an idea, pay some royalties, add some filler content, and then pump it out for loads of dough. The only trick is, you’ve got to pick wisely, because otherwise loads of dough can devolve into a lecture pondering what kind of fucking idiot dedicates millions of dollars and years of development to a half-baked idea they read on an internet slideshow.
As always, the choice is yours. Here are our 10 movies that should have been made into video games.
10. The ‘Annabelle’/’Conjuring’ Series
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I dig what Resident Evil 7 did by reducing the scope of their series (which, by the way, was flying off the damn rails), adding some detail, and making a game that could make you poop yourself if you have IBS or get high a lot. Anyway, the Annabelle and Conjuring series of movies (which, by the way, all make bank) would serve to do the same. We need more games trying to freak us out, and we especially need more reasons to drop money on VR.
9. ‘Cast Away’
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Think about it as Myst with a volleyball. With a tagline like that, how could you not be excited? I’m talking about true Myst, meaning trying to solve puzzles until you get so bored and frustrated that you go crazy and smash your controller. After that, if you want, you can still finish the game, but the point has been made.
8. ‘8 Mile’
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Parappa the Rapper with an ‘M’ rating. Instead of a cartoon dog, you control B-Rabbit. And instead of rapping with an onion or, like, a moose teaching you how to drive, you deal with your alcoholic mom’s abusive relationship and get called a “honkey” a lot.
7. ‘Children of the Corn’
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I was originally going to go with The Purge here, but then I realized that all those open-world games already are The Purge. So instead I went with Children of the Corn, because I feel like it could have a Far Cry 5 vibe. Also I just watched it on Netflix. Nazis, zombies, and aliens are all played out as video game enemies, so instead take on a town of wayward little a-holes in desperate need of a belt to the bottom or, in extreme cases, a pop to the mouth. Smack around enough preteens and you’ll get to take on He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Then beat him and stay the hell away from any sequels.
6. ‘The Revenant’
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Think about it like Oregon Trail, but with less measles and more scalpings. In the first level, you get mauled out of nowhere by a bear, which you may be used to if you played Red Dead Redemption. Note that this game would be almost exclusively for hardcore gamers, as your life-bar would start and stay at one-hit for the duration of the journey. Best of luck to yas.
5. ‘Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter’
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If ever there was a movie concept that lent itself to a video game, this is it. I mean, it’s basically Castlevania or Bloodborne with the 16th president as the protagonist. Fight your way through undead hordes with your axe, some silver, and a Samus-esque hand cannon equipped to fire six types of plasma grenades. The final boss is one of those obnoxious twofer battles where you think it’s over after an epic fight with Dracula, only to have John Wilkes Booth enter stage right.
4. ‘The Sandlot’
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I was originally going to go with Space Jam here, but then I remembered that already was a game. It sucked, but it counts. Instead, go back to…whatever year this movie took place (the early ‘60s?) and create a team of your childhood buddies for an open-ended season. Well that, or you could play story mode, where you and your friends have a carefree time until you hit too many home-runs and have your summer ruined by a dog because you’re kind of pussies. If this game made enough money (and it wouldn’t!), they could make a grown-up sequel where you sit in an office and let out deep sighs whenever you look out the window between April and September.
3. ‘Black Panther’
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It’s kind of odd that Marvel’s highest grossing movie ever didn’t have a video game tie-in. I mean, even if it was rushed and sucked (like most superhero movie games), it still probably would’ve netted $100+ million. All we’re left to do is wonder if that was a creative decision or an “Oops, some executive really dropped the ball here” type of thing. The sequel should give whoever’s in charge of that type of stuff a chance to correct the mistake.
2. ‘Deadpool 2’
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I’m doubling up on Marvel movies here.
For the record, there actually was a Deadpool game that was released in 2013, and then re-released in late 2015 to capitalize on the movie. That was prior to the character’s popularity skyrocketing as a result of—you got it—the movie. Now would be as great a time as any to get back on this horse-turned-cash-cow. Basically, you could just emulate the fighting engine from the Arkham games (stealing DC’s ideas just seems right in this instance), and then add some ‘f’ bombs. Tweak that formula if you want, but that alone should work.
1. ‘Braveheart’
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You could make it Dynasty Warriors with Scottish and English guys, just cut out those sweet guitar solos and add bagpipes. Or, better still, you could just make it God of War, and replace Kratos with a William Wallace skin. Both would seem to hold true (enough) to the movie, so go with whatever floats your boat here.
