Oh the plague that is bad video game movie adaptations. From the not so Oscar Worthy Mortal Kombat flick, to whatever in the name of a Yoshi the velociraptor that Super Mario Bros. film was. Sure, there are a couple examples out there of good adaptations, I’ve heard the Sonic movie is supposed to be good, but haven’t gotten around to watching it. So Disney, Pixar, Sony, Fox, Working Title, and every other movie studio out there. Here are some video games that abosuletly, do NOT deserve a film adaptation, because you will inevidably ruin them. You can thank me later for dodging any silver bullets, or hire me to write the script of an adaptation that actually deserves a cinematic shot.
Horizon: Zero Dawn:
Despite an amazing premise, of a world where humans are thrown back to medieval technology to survive against surrounding robotic creatures, a great sense of gameplay, and a good storyline. Horizon isn’t made to be a film, the appeal really is that it’s an open world with vast territores to explore. Budget wise would also be a bit of an issue. The various robotic creatures and the lasers they shoot out would need a Jurassic Park level of revolutionising. Even then, the story is too thick to properly compact into a two, or even three+ hour film.
Mario Kart:
Sure, Need for Speed released a movie, that garnered ok reviews. Not Spielberg going from Jaws, to producing Cats kind of thing, but not exactly a Shia LaBeouf going from his earlier work, to The Peanut Butter Falcon type of thing either.
First of all, this movie would already have too many characters. It also would most likely only work as an animated flick, unless they ended up getting a Ready Player One sized budget, even then that dough might get stretched real thin. Also, if you’re going to give Mario another shot, do one that actually understands the source material. And for god sakes, make sure your main actor actually knows the existence of the existing franchise, before his kid tells him about it after production’s already started.
Pong:
Yeah, there’s really no movie here. Only exception I could think of would be some kind of Pong Tournament, but even then, the storyline would be pretty thin, generic and uninteresting since there’s already about three hundred movies that have taken the concept further.
Solitaire:
Not even sure if this qualifies as a video game. Originally it was card game, having grown in popularity once Windows added it to their desktops. You drag cards from a deck on the top-left and stack them in a color-coded manner to get four sets on the top right in the end. Bad explanation, I know. I think it’s pretty self explanatory why this wouldn’t work.
– The Screenwriter