There are plenty things I like in this world. I enjoy taking my bike out on a sunny day and letting the wind breeze past me without a care in the world. Having friends over for dinner and drinks is always fun as is Friday night drinks after work. All these things are right. Correct. Good for you. I’m talking about the opposite.

Films based on video games (FBVG) make little sense in an already confused over populated world of ordinariness. FBVG’s is like a white man rapping. It just shouldn’t be done. Nevertheless, film studios seem convinced that it is a good idea on a business front, but lets not get nasty at them cause it’s not their fault. These people think it’s a good idea to make ‘The Love Guru’ so their mental capacity is obviously the same as a twelve year old boy suffering from the sudden realisation that their penis has more then one use… but I’m getting carried away.

I should explain that I have NEVER watched any of these films out of principle. Even as a young boy I knew that the concept of adapting a video game into a film was wrong. I understood that Bob Hopkins was not Mario and that he should just stick to trying to win another BAFTA, even though I didn’t understand what BAFTA meant at the time – I knew it was important, more important then him playing Mario at least… but, once again, I’m getting carried away.

I hope that I’m not the only one that feels this way. It would be a shame if another cent was spent on a movie slip to watch one of these dreadfully banal films. So my time has come to shine. I need to explain to YOU that these films are destroying your brain, one cell at a time. Worse then alcohol even. I’m sure it even does bad things to your liver indirectly, somehow. Seriously.

So I’m here to present to you ‘A completely uneducated history about films based on video games with the assistance of youtube and all it’s wonderful trailers for the salvation of your soul.’ You may want to take some paracetamol now.

PART 1: The Old Dark Days

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YouTube Direkt

Back in 1993 someone thought it would be a great idea to make Hollywoods first video game movie. The Japanese had done it before in their home country successfully and it only made sense for the rest of the world to follow. These were the times when the Nintendo Entertainment System ruled over the Sega Master System and the one game that was Nintendo’s shining light and THE game to have on the NES was Shigerua Miyamoto’s ‘Super Mario Bros’. We all know and love the game. You were an Italian dude with a penchant for magic mushrooms and growing supernaturally. You had a brother called Luigi who helped you out here and there and for some reason you had to save a princess from a bad guy named Bowser. It would eventually become the worlds highest selling video game selling 40 million copies so it only made sense for the first film based from a videogame to come from this very title.

With a massive budget of $42 million for it’s time, production would start with Bob Hopkins playing Mario, John Leguizamo playing Luigi and yes, drug and alcohol crazed Dennis Hopper playing the evil Dennis Hopper, oops, I meant Bowser. Again, I need to point out that this is an uneducated rant of epic proportions so feel free to correct me if you feel like I’m being too nasty (john@geekaloud.com) but you must admit that from the trailer alone, the only thing that you get from the entire film is summed up in one word. Cheese. Indeed, of the very creamy variety. The type of cheese that gets everywhere and is hard to clean up. Sticks to your plate like a magnet if you haven’t cleaned it within the hour. To perfectly exemplify this point the narrator of the trailer ends his serious voice over by warning you that, ‘This ain’t no game.’ Oooo, I’m frightened.

The film was a magnificent failure, both critically and commercially. Canned the world over, it’s box office taking was $20 million, just under half of the budget of the film and it’s production seemed to be stuck in one of those really smelly green pipes within the game. Bob Hoskins went out to say in an interview with The Guardian in 2007 that, “The worst thing I ever did? Super Mario Brothers. It was a f—–‘ nightmare. The whole experience was a nightmare. It had a husband-and-wife team directing, whose arrogance had been mistaken for talent. After so many weeks their own agent told them to get off the set! F—–‘ nightmare. F—–‘ idiots.”

A sequel was planned but was never, understandably made.

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With this knowledge, I need to ask why anyone would consider making any more FBVG’s which brings us to movie two in this history lesson, ‘Double Dragon’. Widely released on all platforms at the time, Double Dragon was the beat them up side scroller to have. It was just plain fun and still lives on, on both the xbox live arcade and the Wii’s virtual console. Although a fun game one should not look at Double Dragon for it’s narrative thoughtfulness, unless, you’re a film producer and think that that’s the best way to make a quick buck. Throw in music video director James Yukish to direct the film and add some somewhat up and coming tv personalities (ie, Scott Wolf found in the where are they now section) and hope that young teenage boys go see the film. It made just over two million after its final theatrical run and you can forget about buying the DVD as they are currently out of print with no real plans for another pressing.

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But all this was just in anticipation for the big daddy to come in and make its foray into film. ‘Street Fighter’ had longed been the king of fighting games alongside Mortal Kombat (we will get to that) and the announcement that it was going to be made into a movie was no big surprise. With its legions of fans it had to become a commercial success and the announcement of Jean Claude Van Damme as the all American good guy Guile would hopefully bring bums to seats without ever once questioning why Guile sounds nothing like an American. OUR Kylie Minogue was cast as Cammy to try to break the American pop music market and Raul Julia was cast as M Bison in what would be his last film before his death. Its soundtrack consisted of the dopest hip hop going around for the time which included songs by: Ice Cube, Nas, The Pharcyde, LL Cool J and Chuck D. It had all the ingredients for success and… it worked! The film grossed $100 million worldwide. God knows why as it is now generally considered one of the worst films ever made. Consider this; When was the last time you watched a film with Jean Claude Van Damme in it? Why, when the film was such a commercial success, did Kylie NOT manage to break into the American pop market for at least a decade after the film was made and why has the director of the film, Steven E. de Souza not made a feature film since? To quote a user review on imdb.com, ‘Elevates PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE to Oscar material!’

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But let’s not forget people that this is a BUSINESS and dollar signs don’t look at critical responses. On the back of the commercial success of Street Fighter, New Line Cinema would throw in $24 million to make that other fighting game into a movie, ‘Mortal Kombat’. Sometimes, surprises happen and on its release in 1995 the film not only became a huge commercial success taking some $120 million at the box office but it was also a somewhat critical success with an influential ‘thumbs up’ rating from Siskel & Ebert. It seemed to do the opposite of Mario Bros, which was to stick to the origins of the game and not to overcomplicate things. It’s techno soundtrack would go platinum within two weeks and it’s young director Paul Anderson (not to be confused with ‘There will be Blood’s’ Paul Thomas Anderson) would secure work from the success of his film for years to come and would also return in later years to the FBVG genre.

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For two years we would have no FBVG releases. Could the studios make another film as successful as ‘Mortal Kombat’? The pain of how bad ‘Street Fighter’ was would still frighten studios to gamble with the failing genre, but, of course, ‘Mortal Kombat’, with all it’s success would inevitably become the movie to come out of the dark after two years of silence with its sequel, ‘Mortal Kombat: Annihilation’. Without it’s original director, without the majority of its old cast, saturated with new characters and with an extra $6 million in its budget then its predecessor, it would invariably close the coffin on the Motal Kombat franchise. Plagued by an abundance of Mortal Kombat products over the recent years (films, tv shows, games, side scrolling games – what where Midway thinking with Mortal Kombat Mythologies – Sub-Zero??) the film would only attract hardcore fans only earning less then half of the last film’s box office taking. The co creator of the franchise John Tobias would resign from Midway and a further sequel, ‘Mortal Kombat: Devastation’ would be put on hold indefinitely. No information about the film has been released regarding the film’s possible release date but 2010 has been circulating around the internet, although I wouldn’t hold your breath.

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So the studios now knew that plumbers saving princesses doesn’t make a good film, side scrolling beat them ups don’t either and most of the fighting games, well, were rather crappy so it was time to try to make a film out of a space combat simulator and why not try the most famed of them all, Wing Commander. Released throughout the 90’s, The Wing Commander franchise revolved around a ton of games, expansions, spin-offs, books, action figures and collectable cards. Ladies and gentlemen, this thing had a fan base, so why did the movie starring the cute boy for the time Freddie Prinze Jr, fail so dramatically at the box office taking in a meagre $11.5 million from a $30 million budget? I can’t be entirely certain, but I will base it on one of the lines in the trailer. ‘I don’t have the faith… It’s not faith. Let’s make our miracle’. One must wonder whether this delusion of grandeur was written in by the film director and Wing Commander’s creator Chris Robert out of hope that a miracle could save his film. Too bad he didn’t make his own miracle. The film did host a female character with a sexy English accent, which was perhaps a sign of things to come…

PART 2: New Millennia

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The new Millennium would bring with it a huge party like you had never seen before, something that Prince prophesised way back in 1982. Along for the party ride would be the one film that pushed the FBVG genre into the ‘Holly shit, we can make a lot of money out of these films’ category. Please enter, ‘Lara Croft: Tomb Raider’. I remember as a young teenager playing the original Tomb Raider back in 96 and thinking wow, she is DAMN hot. Now before you attack me PLEASE remember I was only THIRTEEN at the time and now understand that there are REAL woman in this world as well, but I’m getting off the topic a bit.
Tomb Raider is one of the most successful gaming franchises of all time for two reasons, fantastically fun game play and an incredibly attractive female heroin as its lead. The decision to bring it to the screen was a no brainer for anyone. Financiers were throwing money at Paramount, certain that it would be a success bringing a budget of $94 million to the kitty. It’s history of development revolved around a few people we have already talked about. Brent V. Friedman who co-wrote ‘Mortal Kombat: Annihilation’ was attached to the project early as a writer as so did Steven E. de Souza of ‘Street Fighter’ fame whose script was rejected by Paramount Pictures. Ultimately it was Simon West who took up the mantle to write and direct the film off the back of his huge international hit ‘Con-Air’ but lets not carried away with the possibility that the success of this film was because of him. No no no. For that, only one person was responsible and that person being Angelina Jolie.
Well all know her. I know that YOU went to the movie to watch her without any interest in the Tomb Raider franchise what so ever. The movie could have been crap and still made it’s incredible $300 million at the box office. Fortunately the movie was in the ‘surprisingly not so bad but still forgetful’’ category of films which helps allow me to leave you with this after thought. The director, Simon West, was a successful music video director throughout the 80’s and I include for you one of his famed video clips of the time.

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Seriously!

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A month after Tomb Raider came out so did the Hironobu Sakaguchi’s ‘Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within’. Always a pioneer within the RPG video gaming industry his Final Fantasy games were not only extremely popular but were always pushing the boundaries of what a video game was. When we think about open world immersion like World of Warcraft or even any of the Grand Theft Auto games we have to credit Sakaguchi as one of the founding fathers of this thought process so, unsurprisingly, when talk went around town that he was going to making a Final Fantasy film THAT WAS COMPLETELY CGI and not a kiddie film, well then that’s something to get excited about. With a budget of a whopping $137 million and well known actors like Donald Sutherland, James Woods, Alec Baldwin, Ving Rhames, the always delightful Steve Buscemi and a somewhat OK script, it is a shame that this film eventually would become the second biggest animated bomb in cinema history with it’s losses coming in at $120 million.
There is always the argument that people were not ready for an adult CGI film at the time and would never take it seriously. Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4 praising it as a ‘technical milestone’.
Nevertheless the damage has been done and Sakaguchi resigned from his post as the President of his gaming company Square, not long after the films release.

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Film companies began to realise that throwing a film with an abundance of money, like they did with Final Fantasy was not necessarily a recipe for success so the budgets for future FBVG films were pulled back to the likes of their 90’s counterparts. ‘Resident Evil’ had a budget of $33 million and also saw the return of ‘Mortal Kombat’s’ Paul Anderson back to the FBVG genre. George A. Romero of ‘Night of the Living Dead’ fame was originally signed as the writer/director however Capcom, the games producers never enjoyed his version of the script so was ultimately fired. Milla Jovovich was signed as the main female lead and the film received mixed reviews but ultimately took in $102 million which prompted the studio to set work on a sequel.

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A Tomb Raider sequel was always going to happen due the success of the original film with Anglelina Jolie reprising her roll as Lara Croft and Jan de Bont of ‘Speed’ fame (that movie about a bus) on board as the new director. Steven E. de Souza’s scrapped script for the original film was taken off the shelves for a dusting and once again, a massive budget of $118 million was allocated and the studio execs sat waiting for the money to roll in. When it didn’t, people started to get worried. Finger pointing began with Paramount Pictures blaming the failure of ‘Cradle of Life’ on the new Tomb Raider instalment in the game franchise, which was plagued with bugs and glitches. This panic also caused the cancellation of a James Bond spin off from ‘Die Another Day’ called ‘Jinx’ that was going to star Halle Berry. Ultimately the movie did make it’s money back through international gross but the utter surprise of its failure caused the film studios to never put that much money into a FBVG movie ever again.

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Another FBVG and yes, it’s yet another sequel, this time it’s Resident Evil’s turn. ‘Resident Evil Apocalypse’ on its release went straight to the top of the box office in America ultimately taking in $129 million worldwide. Not bad for it’s budget size of $43 million. The films release had to be pushed back due to the SARS outbreak of the time and the inclusion and themes of the Apocalypse throughout the film. It is sad to think that bad films like this get made AND make a lot of money. The studio, again, announced a second sequel to be made.

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So we now understand that even though these films are horribly bad, there is still money to be made so in the next few years we would see a deluge of titles being flooded onto our cinema screen. The classic ‘Doom’ game that popularised the first person shooter was brought to life by acclaimed Academy nominated cinematographer turned director Andrzej Bartkowiak and starred none other then Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. A complete bomb at the box office, never making its $60 million budget back meant that the planned sequel never took off the ground. Certain people argued that this was due to the change in plot from the game, opting for a virus situation rather then the hellgates that brought on a mass of evil monsters. Nevertheless the film did exemplify a new technique within the film medium: the first person perspective, as seen on the trailer, to pay homage to the original game for which the film should be commended for. It seems like ‘The Rock’ is a person after all, making fun of himself at a recent WWE Hall of Fame night, making a joke of wrestler John Cena’s movie ‘The Marine’ but quickly pointing out that, ‘Don’t worry, hey, I made Doom’.

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Roger Avery, the co-writer of ‘Pulp Fiction’ thought it would be a good idea to jump on board the FBVG wagon as well, for some unknown reason. He recruited the French director Christophe Gans of ‘Brotherhood of the Wolf’ fame to make an adaptation of the ‘Silent Hill’ games. There were no advance screenings for the critics by the distributor (alarm bells anyone?) and although a visual feast of a film thanks to the talented French director, it ended up a mess of a story according to the critical response. Don R. Lewis of Film Threat called it ‘the best-looking bad film I’ve ever seen’. Still, who reads the critical responses? The film went straight to number 1 on the box office making over double its $50 million budget. A sequel is now in production.

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‘Dead or Alive’, the movie? Never heard of it? That’s OK. You’re not the only one. No one went to see this horrible film when it came out! In America it made $480 thousand over its 21-day release. In Australia and the UK it was somewhat of a success no doubt fuelled by ‘Neighbours’ soapie star Holly Valence’s appearance in the film. The film appears to look like a cheap version of ‘Charlie’s Angels’ without any formidable Angels to speak of. The film was released without any advance screenings. Recognise a pattern anyone?

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Yet another ‘Resident Evil’ film and this time directed by Melbourne’s own Russell Mulcahy of ‘Highlander’ fame. You’ve read the history of the other films so I will be short here. Again, an ordinary film but, once again, making tons of money grossing $147 million worldwide. Perplexing to say the least. Producer Paul Anderson has hinted at a fourth instalment. He would be stupid not to when stupid people continue to flock to the cinema for this tripe.

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Speaking of tripe the last film to hit our cinema screens as a FBVG was ‘Hitman’. The film, with a relatively small budget of $17.5 million would go on to be a commercial success but again gathered revolting critical reviews. The film has been criticised for it’s confusing plot, bad acting and extreme violence but one needs to take account that 20th Century Fox originally rejected director Xavier Gens cut and re shot a number of key scenes without Gens. There’s the argument that the decision to recut the film helped make the film a commercial success but it would have been interesting to see Gens version regardless. As hinted earlier, studio execs are business people, not artists and regrettably we will never get to watch the film Xavier Genes wanted to make.
You may have now noted that there have been a few films omitted from this history lesson so far. The reason behind this is for one man…

PART 3: The evil Uwe Boll

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You will read his name over the next few films. Readers beware. He has made four FBVG’s with ‘House of the Dead’ being his first. All four of these films are listed on imdb’s worst 100 movies of all time list. A user review on rottentomatoes.com claims, ‘At first, I was riveted by it’s awfulness. Then, about 20 minutes later, I just wanted to go home.’ The plot to ‘House of the Dead’ is about a group of teens needing to go to a rave on a far away island and then realising that they have all been killed by zombies and they now have to survive within a fortified house on the island. Perhaps this could be a great drunken D grade movie to watch with friends? Another user on rottentomatoes quotes, ‘A film that’s so bad, so grievously awful in so many ways, that you’re convinced that it was meant to be a comedy.’ You know, I might hire it out this weekend and let you know how it goes. The film made no money at the box office but for some reason Uwe Boll received some more cash to make his second FBVG.

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Alone in the Dark was one of those childhood games that I remember with utter fondness. I remember that trepidation of walking through the corridors always itching with fear of a zombie hidden in the darkness. A complete and utter classic in video game history so what does Uwe do? Well, it’s best left in the words of Blair Erickson who worked on the first draft of the script before Uwe Boll took over and changed the script for good. Here’s an extract from an interview he made on somethingawful.com in regards to his working relationship with Boll:
The original script took the Alone In the Dark premise and depicted it as if it were actually based on a true story of a private investigator in the northeastern U.S. whose missing persons cases begin to uncover a disturbing paranormal secret. It was told through the eyes of a writer following Edward Carnby and his co-worker for a novel, and depicted them as real-life blue-collar folks who never expected to find hideous beings waiting for them in the dark. We tried to stick close to the H. P. Lovecraft style and the low-tech nature of the original game, always keeping the horror in the shadows so you never saw what was coming for them. Thankfully Dr. Boll was able to hire his loyal team of hacks to crank out something much better than our crappy story and add in all sorts of terrifying horror movie essentials like opening gateways to alternate dimensions, bimbo blonde archaeologists, sex scenes, mad scientists, slimy dog monsters, special army forces designed to battle slimy CG dog monsters, Tara Reid, “Matrix” slow-motion gun battles, and car chases. Oh yeah, and a ten-minute opening back story scroll read aloud to the illiterate audience, the only people able to successfully miss all the negative reviews. I mean hell, Boll knows that’s where the real scares lie.

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Again, why someone would give this man $25 million to make a film about a rather forgetful videogame is beyond me. Again, it bombed at the box office only taking close to $4 million. They hired prostitutes to reduce production costs. Seriously! Any WHY did Ben Kingsley choose to do this movie for? Some questions will perhaps remain unanswered.

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And then we come to Postal. Never heard of the film? Perhaps that’s because theatre distributors pulled out of its wide release therefore making its original 1,500 screen release down to a ‘not worth noting for your life’ 12 screen release. The film seems to have NOTHING to do with the video game at all and is Boll’s attempt to make a schlock comedy film ala Borat, but without the ingenuity. The infamous opening to the film can be found below, which probably caused most of the panic from the distributors. Feel free to make up your own mind.

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A Dungeon Siege movie… why? Jason Statham and Ray Liotta, why? Brightlight Pictures and it’s $60 million budget… why? No one went to watch it. I get that.

PART 4: Future proofed?

It’s a sign of the times (and I don’t mean the Prince album) when Uwe Boll continually manages to make these dreadful films as an indication on how silly studios can be. The ‘Resident Evil’ films prove you can make crap movies but still make money and the likes of Roger Avery trying to mix in with the genre proves that there is an interest outside, well, Uwe Boll.
Speaking of which, Boll has yet another FBVG coming out in the coming months based on the popular PC game ‘Far Cry’ which look like another piece of shit…

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…Calvin Klein underwear clad Mark Wahlberg will bring ‘Max Payne’ alive on to the screen…

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…a new Street Fighter film ‘The Legend of Chun-Li’ directed by ‘Dooms’ Andrzej Bartkowiak will come out next year. Jean-Claude Van Damme was approached to reprise his role as Guile but turned it down because according to him, he is now being careful in choosing his film roles…
…Prince of Persia will get its film version next year with ‘The Sands of Time’ produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and starring Jake Gyllenhall with Ben Kinsley making his second FBVG appearance…
…and ‘Tekken’ will also come out next year with a reported $100 million budget. A bucket load of games are in pre production phase including Bioshock, to be directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) and written by John Logan (Gladiator), Castlevania to be directed by Sylvain White (Stomp the Yard), City of Heroes produced by Tom DeSanto (Transformers), Everquest written by Michael Gordon (300), Gears of War directed by Len Wiseman (Die Hard 4.0), Halo executive produced by Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings), Kane & Lynch with Bruce Willis to play Kane and Warcraft will be made into a film as well.
The question shouldn’t be whether these films will be successful, because they obviously will, but if there will ever be a FBVG that will be rememberable in any way. This writer thinks that there is a slim chance of hope. Think of comic book movies and the recent genius that is ‘The Dark Knight’. Sure, it took 20+ years to make a comic book movie that good but it did happen in the end and that should leave us with some sought of anticipation for the first great FBVG film. Just don’t let Uwe Boll make it.