Difficulties abound in game-to-movie adaptations: Why they flop

Game-to-movie adaptations have been…well, so-so as of late, with a string of releases ranging from the so-so, to the bad, and to the terrifyingly-horrible. It’s certainly puzzling, though, for an industry that can churn out great blockbusters of any genre most of the time. Why is it that only game-to-movie adaptations have that cringe-worthy, gag-reflex effect? Although we’re no shot-calling directors ourselves, we can’t figure out the difference between directing a game-to-movie adaptation from a non-game-to-movie adaptation.

There’s the story, the actors, the set, the special effects – and shouldn’t making the former be an easier deal, since you already have a ton of angles and backstory to work with, dialogue you can analyze for character development, and the visuals to merely replicate onto celluloid (the sets, the characters, props)? If that’s the case, then why all the suckage?

Jamie Pressly, female lead of the popular TV sitcom My Name is Earl and the actress who gamely portrayed Tina in the movie “DOA: Dead or Alive” could give us an insight on the WHY. In an article written by Ftopel of Rotten Tomatoes, the actress cited a lot of difficulty with the set, namely language barriers (most of the movie was shot in China) as well as a lack of necessities, made her not that sad about the movie being constantly pulled back from release in the US.

She then went on to say that she thought the movie itself was inaccurate for gamers, as the people in charge “…changed it along the way.” We’re no movie directors or scriptwriters over here at QJ, but isn’t staying true to the material something movies are supposed to be about?

Pressly also recounts the fact that she only got to see the finished product only through a friend.

The way that I got to see it was one of the guys, actually the guy who was Jason Lee’s stand-in, for a departing present for the season, found it for me in Europe. It was released in Europe. It was bought by the Weinstein Brothers and the Weinstein Company released it overseas first to see how it would do because it’s a really big video game overseas. I’m just going with it didn’t do well because it didn’t come out in America.

Well, another bullet dodged, but what about the other game-to-movie adaptations heading our way? Will we ever be able to sit down with soda and popcorn and get wowed over by a movie that’s actually about a game and pretty much sticks to the material it’s based off on? There’s no way of telling, but we have our fingers crossed. Come on, Hollywood geniuses! Prove us wrong! It shouldn’t be that hard!

Game-to-movie adaptations have been…well, so-so as of late, with a string of releases ranging from the so-so, to the bad, and to the terrifyingly-horrible. It’s certainly puzzling, though, for an industry that can churn out great blockbusters of any genre most of the time. Why is it that only game-to-movie adaptations have that cringe-worthy, gag-reflex effect? Although we’re no shot-calling directors ourselves, we can’t figure out the difference between directing a game-to-movie adaptation from a non-game-to-movie adaptation.

There’s the story, the actors, the set, the special effects – and shouldn’t making the former be an easier deal, since you already have a ton of angles and backstory to work with, dialogue you can analyze for character development, and the visuals to merely replicate onto celluloid (the sets, the characters, props)? If that’s the case, then why all the suckage?

Jamie Pressly, female lead of the popular TV sitcom My Name is Earl and the actress who gamely portrayed Tina in the movie “DOA: Dead or Alive” could give us an insight on the WHY. In an article written by Ftopel of Rotten Tomatoes, the actress cited a lot of difficulty with the set, namely language barriers (most of the movie was shot in China) as well as a lack of necessities, made her not that sad about the movie being constantly pulled back from release in the US.

She then went on to say that she thought the movie itself was inaccurate for gamers, as the people in charge “…changed it along the way.” We’re no movie directors or scriptwriters over here at QJ, but isn’t staying true to the material something movies are supposed to be about?

Pressly also recounts the fact that she only got to see the finished product only through a friend.

The way that I got to see it was one of the guys, actually the guy who was Jason Lee’s stand-in, for a departing present for the season, found it for me in Europe. It was released in Europe. It was bought by the Weinstein Brothers and the Weinstein Company released it overseas first to see how it would do because it’s a really big video game overseas. I’m just going with it didn’t do well because it didn’t come out in America.

Well, another bullet dodged, but what about the other game-to-movie adaptations heading our way? Will we ever be able to sit down with soda and popcorn and get wowed over by a movie that’s actually about a game and pretty much sticks to the material it’s based off on? There’s no way of telling, but we have our fingers crossed. Come on, Hollywood geniuses! Prove us wrong! It shouldn’t be that hard!