Video game curse
In the film- and entertainment industry, the "video game curse" is a tongue-in-cheek "curse" that causes films based on video games to become poorly received by audiences and critics. The term is mainly applied to contemporary big-budget filmmaking.
History of the term[edit]
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The first film to be directly based on a video game was the 1993 film Super Mario Bros. based on the video game of the same name as well as the wider video game series. It was widely considered a very bad film.[1]
Theories on causes[edit]
Some believe that the cause of the curse lies in the very nature of the video game medium and its differences to a non-interactive film.[2][3] Others believe that filmmakers simply lack the video game experience needed to faithfully reproduce the medium into film.[4][5][6] German filmmaker Uwe Boll has produced a large number of poorly received films based on video games, using German tax shelter laws to keep working despite his movies routinely failing to break even at the box office. Boll stated that he did not enjoy creating these adaptations and only did so in order to raise funds for his passion projects.[7][8]
It has been also been observed that although films based directly on existing video games often fail, films that borrow video game themes are often successful.[5][9]
List of films[edit]
This is a list of international theatrical films based on video games that have been described as "cursed".
| Film | Based on | Year | Metascore[10] | Tomatoscore[11] | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hitman: Agent 47 | The Hitman series | 2015 | 28/100 | 8% | [12] |
| Assassin's Creed | The Assassin's Creed series | 2015 | 36/100 | 18% | [13] |
| Warcraft | The Warcraft franchise, including World of Warcraft | 2015 | 32/100 | 28% | [14] |
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ Hood, Cooper (31 Jan 2018). "Nintendo and Illumination Officially Partnering for Super Mario Animated Movie". Screen Rant. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
- ↑ Di Placido, Dani (May 22, 2017). "Tom Holland Cast As Nathan Drake In 'Uncharted' Movie". Forbes. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
- ↑ Makuch, Eddie (January 30, 2018). "How The Rampage Movie Aims To Avoid The "Video Game Curse"". Gamespot. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
- ↑ Makuch, Eddie (August 13, 2015). "Why Video Game Movies Will Get Better, According to Hitman Producer". Gamespot. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Cotter, Padraig (2 Jan 2018). "There's No Such Thing As A Video Game Movie "Curse"". Screen Rant. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
- ↑ Agar, Chris (5 November 2015). "Warcraft: Duncan Jones On Breaking the Video Game Curse". Screen Rant. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
- ↑ Child, Ben (2016-10-28). "The 'world's worst director': are Uwe Boll's movies really that bad?". The Guardian.
- ↑ Matulef, Jeffrey (2016-10-27). "Infamous video game movie director Uwe Boll retires from filmmaking". Eurogamer.
- ↑ Francisco, Eric (March 16, 2018). "If 'Tomb Raider' Was Cursed, the Director Didn't Care". Inverse Entertainment. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
- ↑ Metacritic
- ↑ Rotten Tomatoes
- ↑ Makuch, Eddie (August 22, 2015). "New Hitman Movie One of the Worst-Reviewed Game Films Ever". Gamespot. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
- ↑ Gilman, Greg (December 21, 2016). "'Assassin's Creed' Reviews Are as Bad as You Probably Expected". The Warp. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
- ↑ Le, Nguyen (June 9, 2016). "Video game curse hammers 'Warcraft'". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
Further reading[edit]
External lists[edit]
- Thompson, Mike (September 8, 2010). "Best and Worst Movies Based on Videogames". Metacritic. Retrieved 18 Feb 2018.
- Nguyen, Hanh (April 26, 2016). "22 Truly Terrible Video Game Movies, Ranked". Metacritic. Retrieved 18 Feb 2018.
- "44 Video Game Movies Ranked Worst to Best". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2018-03-18.
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