Video game movies have the potential to create wonderful new stories with existing characters and franchises, all while catering to massive existing fan bases. Historically, of course, most film adaptations of video games just haven’t been that good.
Nonetheless, at the recent “Franchise Fever: Pursuing Ideas and Big Audiences” panel at DICE 2016, video game movies were discussed at length and the idea of creating a Nintendo film considered. During the panel, Vertigo Entertainment president Roy Lee was asked what his dream movie project would be and answered with:
“Mine would be Nintendo. I think Zelda, Mario, and the whole universe of characters would be perfect for a Lego Movie type of [film]. I don’t have the rights to it, but I would love to. That would be my Holy Grail.”
The idea was shared by fellow panelist Adrian Askarieh, CEO and president Prime Universe Films, who agreed that Nintendo would just need to find the people that can execute it properly. In fact, when asked about how studios could make better movies, they both said that first step is to have the game creators involved in the film’s development as much as possible.
Lee and Askarieh themselves are no strangers to video game adaptations, and are currently working together on a film adaptation of the Deus Ex series.
Nintendo has a somewhat troubled history with motion pictures, with the infamous Super Mario Bros. film still in many people’s memories despite its release being as far back as 1993. Now may well be the time for the long-awaited sequel to that though — we never did find out what the flamethrower-carrying Daisy wanted in the last scene, after all! Then again, Nintendo has also had varying success with bringing its franchises to the small screen (“Excuse me, Princess!”), so perhaps Nintendo’s franchises are best left as video games.
Should any of Nintendo’s franchises be made into a film ? Let us know in the comments.
Source: Gameinformer