Every time a new television or film adaptation of a beloved video game is announced, someone brings up the “stigma” of video games being brought to another screen. It’s true that some ill-fated efforts have given video game movies a bad name (from House of the Dead to Postal to Street Fighter: The Legend) and critics seem to hold these adaptations to a harsher standard. First to hit the market was Super Mario Bros. (1993), a fantastically daring live-action film that has since garnered a cult following, though it was met with a vitriol that forever poisoned the discourse around video game adaptations. . There have been over 50 video game adaptations since Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo battled Dennis Hopper’s King Koopa, but headlines still wonder, in our year 2023, if The Last of Us will “break the curse of video game adaptations” or if it will finally “break the curse of video game adaptations.” a terrible stigma” even though any curse or stigma has been defeated long ago.
It’s difficult to understand what stigma is referred to, if to the financial profitability, to the consensus of the critic or to the appreciation of the public. “All video game movies are bad” is a logic that went out of fashion at least a decade ago, and is only uttered by those who are voluntarily not interested in video game adaptations or suffer from short-term memory loss.
If we’re talking about the box office benefits of video game movies, how can there be a stigma when Paul WS Anderson’s Resident Evil franchise spans 6 movies due to ceremonious ticket sales? Even rounding down, Resident Evil movies have grossed $1.2 billion worldwide with a production budget of $313 million for Sony, and that’s not including physical media sales. Apocalypse, Extinction, Afterlife and Vengeance opened at number one in the North American box office, and Final Chapter was the highest grossing, with $314 million raised worldwide and a budget of $40 million. The infection began to spread in 2002, when Resident Evil, Anderson’s patient zero, grossed $100 million at $33 million spending, marking a return to the early 2000s for a stigma buster approved by the study.
Resident Evil is not the only video game movie that has been successful in theaters. The adaptation of Mortal Kombat made by Anderson in 1995 dominated the competition with $122 million in profit against $20 million in production costs. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), by Simon West, benefited from the stellar performance of Angelina Jolie in the role of the leading explorer and brought in a whopping $274 million, an impressive figure considering that the budget of the blockbuster was 115 million dollars. Let’s not forget Steven E. de Souza’s Street Fighter adaptation in 1994. Jean-Claude Van Damme did a combo with a $35 million budget and $99 million gross, and can I mention that all of these titles spawned to sequels due to its impressive economic results?
So if you’re trying to tell me that the curses and stigmata have to do with the dollar sign, stop right there. Super Mario Bros. may have been a superstar (by one budget estimate, the $38 million box office gross didn’t even top the $42 million it cost to produce), but that stat is useless even a year later, when Street Fighter doubles with you add to Mario’s embarrassing take.
Television does not have box office reports, but it does have ratings that reflect the audience in the same way as ticket sales. Arcane: League of Legends on Netflix was a surprisingly popular series that became #1 on Netflix in its first week. Netflix’s beloved Castlevania anime has been turned into a sequel series following massive praise for its original four seasons. Streaming companies have opened the door for TV adaptations of video games based on a wide range of properties.. Not to mention the cartoons of Sonic, Donkey Kong, Mario, and Link, the true originals as far as episodic video game adaptations go.
If you are arguing that Critical rejection is a viable metric when measuring the value of video game adaptations, that’s another refutable field. Rotten Tomatoes has recently published a Tomatometer scale that lists 49 theatrically released video game adaptations with 20 or more reviews, and only 5 are considered good. From fifth to first are both Sonic movies, then Detective Pikachu, followed by Angry Birds 2: The Movie, and A Werewolf Among Us as the only video game adaptation certified “fresh” (congrats Josh Ruben). . VOD and/or international premieres such as the Taiwanese Detention (2019) with 86%, the Japanese Fatal Frame (2014) that never reached international critics, or the Indonesian DreadOut (2019) with 64% that are still waiting are not included. international distribution. Series like Arcane: League of Legends with 100%, the Cuphead series! at 69% (currently awaiting renewal for a fourth season), and Castlevania at its lowest season score at 83% (hitting two perfect 100%s so far).
Often, animated television is left out of the conversation when it comes to video game adaptations due to quite hilarious stigmata. “Animation is for children” or “television is second rate compared to cinema.” We are used to drawing ups and downs, while television adaptations, once less frequent but still present, were not valued equally. How can we say that The Last of Us cannot reach the heights of Arcane: League of Legends when in 2021 it was described as the first great television adaptation of a video game? Or by acknowledging the successes of the multiple Sonic TV cartoons, which precede even Super Mario Bros. by a year (1992)?
Besides, we are creating a stigma based on personal preferences and critical values if we say that these are the ultimate quality ratings, and can you really do that? Audiences have long appreciated film versions that critics, who are neither gamers nor horror fans, consider “unwatchable,” predisposing them to a negative bias (2000s horror fans know this struggle). Anderson’s Resident Evil may have a 35% review rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it also commands a 67% audience rating. The Rock’s Project Rampage has a negative score of 51%, but is even higher in viewership at 72%. Anderson’s recent “Monster Hunter,” who was an unfortunate victim? Only 44% of the critics compared to 70% of the audience. As a reviewer, I understand that everyone has a right to give their opinion, but I also understand how the voices that are there to defend Project Rampage or Monster Hunter, of which I am happily part of the positive review team, are mitigated. The Cuphead series continues because people watch it, and that matters.
I would go on for at least a thousand more words right now about how Doom (2005) is one of the most successful video game adaptations to date. I see the Rotten Tomatoes score, but if you asked me personally… I’d say that video game adaptations have rarely surpassed Karl Urban’s full-throttle race through a Mars facility filled with demonic mutants. You may roll your eyes, but this is nothing more than a rejection of the stupidity of the perpetuated stigmas. You may have never liked a video game adaptation in your life, but that doesn’t invalidate the countless adaptations that have succeeded where others scoffed. Fans of Prince of Persia, supporters of Silent Hill or defenders of Assassin’s Creed. Personal preferences cannot be presented as a general fact. Relying on incomplete feelings is nothing more than lazy clickbait.
So no. The Last of Us will not break the curse of video game adaptations because there is no stigma to break. Will The Last of Us be a momentous event that further legitimizes video game adaptations as its highlights evolve? The signs flash in the right direction. However, that is the problem with modern critical discourses: if we are not pitting things against each other or stroking hyperbole, there is not much attention. It’s easy to continue a broken narrative that all video game adaptations are bad, while it’s harder to prove otherwise. Luckily, from time to time I like challenges. Say it loud, say it often, and tell anyone who will listen: there is no curse in video game adaptations.
