“Wildly deficient.” “Headache-inducing.” “A movie from hell.” “Gives birth to an entirely new kind of idiot.”
That’s how critics in 1993 described “Super Mario Bros.,” the first major motion picture based on a video game. A $48 million gamble starring an Oscar-nominated Bob Hoskins and a then-rising John Leguizamo, the Disney-distributed release flopped so badly that it seemed to curse every video game movie that came after. For decades, the genre has been synonymous with low-quality cinema, plagued by substandard acting, incoherent storylines and cringeworthy dialogue. (“Are you man enough to fight with me?” Jean-Claude Van Damme snarled in 1994’s “Street Fighter.”)
Today, video game movies are leveling up. Critics embraced 2020’s “Sonic the Hedgehog” as a family-friendly adventure-comedy, audiences shelled out $1.3 billion worldwide for Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” in 2023 and last year’s “A Minecraft Movie” became a headline-making sensation that nearly passed the billon-dollar mark. Universal’s sequel, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” arrives Wednesday with predictions for a five-day opening take of $160 million and the potential to outearn the original.
Chalk it up to a savvier Hollywood, a wider audience for the once-nerdy pastime of video games and more direct input from the games’ creators, say industry observers.
“It’s taken time for the video game to enter the mainstream cultural consciousness,” says Charles Pulliam-Moore, culture reporter for the technology and entertainment website The Verge. In the early 1980s, video games existed only at the local arcade, but eventually migrated to home consoles, then carry-around versions, then smartphones. “As consoles got cheaper and smaller and more portable, it gave more people an opportunity to dip their toe in it,” Pulliam-Moore says.
Meanwhile, studios have been collaborating more closely with gaming companies, says Jennifer Maas, who covers the business of video games for Variety. When “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” pushed its release by several months, for example, it was Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto who announced the news on his Twitter account. The head of Mojang Studios, creators of Minecraft, reportedly grilled potential writers and directors on their knowledge of the game before they were hired. And director Emma Tammi spoke with Scott Cawthon, the somewhat reclusive creator of the horror game “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” before starting work on the 2023 film adaptation. (It became a smash hit with an $80 million opening weekend and a sequel set for December release.)
“Almost all the projects that have success are because they’re taking it seriously from the fans’ perspective,” Maas says.
The genre has yet to produce a bona fide masterpiece, but that could change now that top talent is entering the arena. Zach Cregger, writer-director of the Oscar-nominated horror film “Weapons,” will reboot Capcom’s “Resident Evil” franchise later this year. Filmmaker Alex Garland (“Ex Machina”) is reportedly adapting Namco’s fantasy game “Elden Ring.” The acclaimed writer Taylor Sheridan (“Yellowstone”) has reportedly joined director Peter Berg (“Friday Night Lights”) for a feature-film version of Activision’s “Call of Duty.” More than 30 video game movies are in some stage of development, according to the pop culture website IGN.
The genre might even be in danger of overkill, according to Maas. “People are really looking at this as the next big place to mine properties from,” she says. “But if you start to oversaturate it, you could eventually end up in the same place that they did with too many comic book adaptations.”
Here’s our list of the 10 best video game movies so far:
1. SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (2020)
The tltle character (voiced by Ben Schwartz) and Tom Wachowski (James Marsden) hit the road in 2020’s “Sonic the Hedgehog.” Credit: Paramount/Everett Collection
Universal’s trailers wound up becoming test runs for the design (and redesign) of the movie’s CGI star. Fans labeled early versions “Ugly Sonic” but gradually gave their approval and helped turn the movie into a $319 million global hit. “Sonic” is a well-crafted crowd-pleaser, with fine work from voice actor Ben Schwartz as the hyperactive hedgehog, a likable James Marsden as a small-town cop and a scene-stealing Jim Carrey as the villain Dr. Robotnik.
2. RAMPAGE (2018) If you didn’t know it was an old Bally Midway game going in, you wouldn’t be any wiser walking out: “Rampage” is really a Dwayne Johnson flick, and a perfectly good one. He plays a primatologist with a Special Forces background who must save Chicago from a supersized gorilla, wolf and crocodile. Only a star with supersized charisma could carry his own among these CGI kaiju, and Johnson’s got it.
3. GRAN TURISMO (2023) Though officially based on the Polyphony Digital game, this is also a biopic of Jann Mardenborough, a British teen who played it so well he became a professional race car driver. “Gran Turismo” presaged “F1” by a couple of years: Archie Madekwe plays the young hotshot, while David Harbour is the old-school coach who whips him into shape. Add some slick racing scenes (the director is Neill Blomkamp, of “District 9”) and you’ve got a corny but effective sports drama. Sample dialogue: “I’m gonna push you harder than you have ever been pushed!”
4. POKÉMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU (2019) Ryan Reynolds is the voice of the cute yellow title critter in this fan-targeted but mostly enjoyable comedy-mystery. Like the “Deadpool” movies, “Pikachu” relies mostly on Reynolds to deliver enough pop-cultural wisecracks to carry the day. At the time, the movie’s $58 million opening weekend was the highest ever for a video game adaptation, according to BoxOfficeMojo.
5. RESIDENT EVIL (2002) Everybody complains that Paul W.S. Anderson’s horror series is unfaithful to Capcom’s shoot-the-zombies games. Yet his seven movies have earned a combined $1.2 billion worldwide. Clearly, people keep coming back to see Milla Jovovich as Alice, a svelte survivor blasting her way through a Goth-rock-pocalypse. The first film is still the freshest of the bunch.
6. LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER (2001)
Angelina Jolie stars as the gun-toting title character in 2001’s “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.” Credit: Alamy Stock Photo/Album/Paramount Pictures
Angelina Jolie played one of gaming’s most popular figures, a treasure hunter in a skin-tight top in this unabashedly sexed-up and self-consciously silly action-adventure film. It remains one of the genre’s top grossers with $275 million worldwide. Croft’s appeal endures: Jolie returned in a 2003 sequel, Alicia Vikander took over in a 2018 feature and Sophie Turner is starring in a planned “Tomb Raider” series for Prime Video.
7. THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE (2016)
“The Angry Birds” had no reason to feel mad about the movie’s success. Credit: Album / Alamy Stock Photo/Sony Pictures Animation
Sony Pictures’ animated comedy is surely the first film adaptation of an app. It’s also an early attempt to turn a video game into animated family fare, as “Sonic” would do later. The pluses here are a fine voice cast (Jason Sudeikis, Danny McBride, a grunting Sean Penn), lively animation and an appealingly daffy screenplay in which rage saves the day.
8. THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE (2023) “After decades of offensively terrible video game adaptations,” a columnist for UK’s The Guardian wrote of this movie, “I’m more than happy to settle for one that is simply OK.” That was the general critical consensus on a film that gets by on kid-friendly humor and cute animation (from the studio Illumination, of “Minions” fame). Chris Pratt, Jack Black and Anya Taylor-Joy make for a top-notch voice cast.
9. UNCHARTED (2022) The backstory may be more interesting than the movie: David O. Russell was originally set to write and direct, with Mark Wahlberg as Drake, the film’s young hero. More than a decade later, Tom Holland played Drake while Wahlberg played the older role of Victor, a slippery fortune hunter. Directed by Ruben Fleischer (“Zombieland”), the movie works passably well as a “National Treasure” knockoff. Two post-credits scenes promised a sequel that has yet to arrive.
10. A MINECRAFT MOVIE (2025)
Danielle Brooks, left, Sebastian Hansen, Jason Momoa and Emma Myers were game for their participation in “A Minecraft Movie.” Credit: Warner Bros/Everett Collection
Is this a movie, or just a series of in-jokes? Roughly $900 million at the box office says: It doesn’t matter. Just hearing star Jack Black say the words “chicken jockey” was enough to send moviegoers into hysterics that left theaters covered in popcorn and soda. Multiplexes posted signs pleading for civility, police were called to at least one screening and Black himself appeared at another to encourage calm. The fan-first approach was probably the right one, according to The Verge’s Pulliam-Moore: “All they were saying was, ‘You know that thing you know? We’re doing that thing.’”
