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Film and television adaptations of video games

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Numerous electronic and video games have been adapted into films and television series, with the work in the new medium incorporating elements of the game's narrative, characters, gameplay, and concepts.[1][2]

The first and earliest adaptation of a video game was an American animated series Pac-Man (1982–1983), loosely based on a 1980 Japanese video game of the same name by Toru Iwatani, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions.[3] Early adaptations, mostly television series, began in Japan and the United States are more prevalent, which allows certain games to be adapted more cheaply and faithfully such as Saturday Supercade (1983–1984) and Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! (1986). Television adaptations of video games became more popular in the late-1980s and 1990s, driven by its popularity and generally garnered mixed and positive responses by critics and fans of video games, particularly the live-action game show Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (1991–1995) and its sequels were critically praised and won several Daytime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award.

The Hollywood film industry began making live-action adaptations in the mid-1990s, including Super Mario Bros. (1993), Double Dragon and Street Fighter (both 1994). Most of these films were typically made to capitalize on the popularities of these games, and tried to incorporate the interactivity of a video game to the fixed medium with mixed results, with several of these films being critically panned. While some works in the 2000s and 2010s that received positive criticism and were profitable, many adaptations in this period received poor reviews and were box-office failures, leaving game developers hesitant about giving studios permission to adapt their feature films.

Adaptations of video games in the late-2010s have been revitalized after the releases of video game films Detective Pikachu (2019) and Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), both critically praised and considered major successes at the box office, shifted the landscape for adaptations of video games. These films and several that followed focused on the story and narrative elements of the games rather than the gameplay, and were considered more effective and faithful to the source material. In the 2020s, several more video game films were highly successful at the box office, including The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) and A Minecraft Movie (2025), breaking previous records for adaptations. Newer television adaptations in the 2020s, following similar approaches of focusing on the game's narrative rather than gameplay, drew similar critical praise. These included Arcane (2021), The Last of Us (2023), and Fallout (2024), all of which garnered several Primetime Emmy Awards.

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History

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1986–1993: Origins

United States

Further information: List of animated series based on video games
Title logo of the 1982 American animated series Pac-Man, based on a 1980 Japanese video game of the same name, claims to be the earliest adaptation of a video game.

First adaptations during the golden age of arcade video games in the United States have been made prior in the early-1980s, mostly are animated television series. It was claimed to be the first and earliest adaptation was the 1982 animated series Pac-Man, based on a video game of the same name.[3] The 1983 anthology series Saturday Supercade was the second to adapt from video games, produced for Saturday mornings by Ruby-Spears Productions, consisting of four 11-minute segments based on various arcade video games including Frogger, Donkey Kong, and Donkey Kong Jr..[4] In 1984, it was followed by two different adaptations from video games released at the same year: a fantasy animated miniseries Dragon's Lair by Ruby-Spears Productions, based on the 1983 LaserDisc video game of the same name,[5] and a sci-fi action animated miniseries Pole Position by DIC Enterprises and MK Company, loosely based on the 1982 arcade racing video game series of the same name by Namco.[6]

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Nintendo is responsible of adapting various popular NES games into several animated series started in the 1980s, until then in the 1993, where a live-action film Super Mario Bros. was released to critical and commercial failure, which negatively affected the company.

After the video game crash of 1983 and its introduction of Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the United States in 1985, animated television adaptations of Nintendo video games became more popular in the late-1980s. The Legend of Zelda's first fully adaptation at that time was the animated serial of the same name, loosely follows the two NES Zelda games (the original The Legend of Zelda and The Adventure of Link), from the animated series The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, mixing settings and characters from those games with original creations.[7]

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The title card of the 1991 animated television series Super Mario World, served as the last title adapted from Mario video game series following its failure of a live-action film.

In the same year, the 1989 animated series Captain N: The Game Master, based on video games released from Nintendo, specifically featuring characters and elements from various popular Nintendo games.[8] It was then proceed to the 1990 animated series The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, loosely based on Super Mario Bros. 3., until the following year, the 1991 animated series Super Mario World, based on the Mario video game series, will be the last animated series to be adapted from Nintendo video games.[9] In addition from adaptations of Nintendo video games, other animated adaptations released in 1993 were the animated series Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog[10] as well as its related series of the same name,[11] both based on Sonic the Hedgehog by Sega, and the action-adventure animated series Double Dragon, based on the video game series of the same name by Technōs Japan and Tradewest.[12]

Live-action adaptations have not introduced until The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! (1989), which being the first live-action/animated hybrid series, some varied of live-action snippets appeared in most episodes. The first fully live-action television adaptation of a video game was a 1990 sitcom Maniac Mansion by Eugene Levy, loosely based on the 1987 video game of the same name by Lucasfilm Games.[13] It was followed by a children's television game show Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, based on the series of computer games by Broderbund,[14] broadcast by PBS. The game show's first season received critical success and received two Daytime Emmy Awards in 1992, winning once for Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction/Set Decoration/Scenic Design, the first such a rare achievement for an adaptation of video game to received nominations for and to win an Emmy Award.[15] Over the five seasons it was on the air, the game show won another six Daytime Emmys out of 24 nominations[15] and a Peabody Award, described as "a uniquely creative and influential use of television on a topic of primary importance".[16] It was later succeed with another game show Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? in 1996.

The first theatrical live-action feature film in the United States, the eponymous Super Mario Bros., was released on May 28, 1993, to both critical and commercial failure, failed to earn back even its $48 million budget in worldwide gross.[17] Critics including Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times criticized the film's lack of faithfulness to the source material.[18] Its failure of a live action film negatively affected Nintendo, Shigeru Miyamoto forced not to license any Nintendo game series, particularly Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda into the medium in the future, departing its adaptation property with both a live-action film Super Mario Bros. and an animated series Super Mario World as the last two projects ever released.[19]

Japan

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A Japanese VHS cover of double feature: Star Soldier's Secret and Game King, both were based on a video game Star Soldier.

Japan starts working on films adapted from video games in 1986: two anime films Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! and Running Boy: Star Soldier's Secret [ja], and a live-action sport short film Game King: Master Takahashi VS Master Mori Clash! Great Battle [ja], were the first three from Family Computer and Nintendo Entertainment System games released in July 20, 1986.[20] Hudson Soft commissioned Star Soldier's Secret and Game King as a double feature to promote Star Soldier, but it was a box office failure and pulled from theaters earlier than anticipated due to clash with Super Mario Bros.; it was later released on VHS containing two films.[21] Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! was followed by short films and OVA between 1989 and 1995.

The first live-action feature film adapted from a video game in Japan was the 1988 direct-to-video film Mirai Ninja, based on the Namco arcade game of the same name, although the film was premiered in Tokyo on October before the video game was released the following month.[22]

A two-episode OVA titled Tengai Makyō Ziria Oboro-hen[a], based on a series of role-playing video games Tengai Makyō by Oji Hiroi and Red Company, was made and released in 1990.[23] A 50-minute adult animated dark fantasy OVA titled Wizardry was produced by TMS Entertainment in February 20, 1991, based on Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord by Andrew C. Greenberg and Robert Woodhead; the OVA depicts graphic violence and death, a rare feat for any adaptations of video games in the 1990s that introduces complex, mature themes.[24][25][26] Between 1991 and 1993, anime films and television series based on Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai were released.[27]

1994–2001: Mainstream breakthrough

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Paul W. S. Anderson in 2012

Super Mario Bros. was followed in 1994 by other adaptations, such as Double Dragon and Street Fighter, which received similarly negative reviews. This changed with the 1995 film Mortal Kombat, directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, which was the first film adaptation of a video game to gain a critical and commercial success, earn more than $100 million dollars at the box office, with Anderson established by critics as a preeminent director of video game films;[28] the film remains one of the highest-rated video game films among critics.[29] Its mainstream success of Mortal Kombat continue to follow their essences for live-action film adaptations include Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), also received moderate commercial success.[30][31]

Animated films and shows also began gaining mainstream success. The anime series Pokémon (1997–present) becoming the most successful adaptation of video game of all time,[32] and Arc the Lad was also introduced in 1999. The anime films Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (1994), Pokémon: The First Movie (1998) and Pokémon: The Movie 2000 (1999) became internationally successful. In American animated television, a live-action/animated series Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? garnered critical success and won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Animated Program.[33]

In 2001, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), distributed by Columbia Pictures and directed by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, became a major milestone in the history of animation and adaptations of video games, particularly its pioneering and influential achievement of motion-capture to achieve rendered photorealism in computer animation.[34][35][36]

2001–2017: Expansion and fluctuations

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Uwe Boll in 2016

Video game film adaptations in Hollywood gained notoriety during this period due to large number of films drew polarized or panned response.[37][38] Some of the more successful film adaptations during this time include the Resident Evil series (2002–2016), Silent Hill (2006), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) and Warcraft (2016). On the other end of the spectrum, many adaptations fall irregularly to generate revenue equivalent to their production budget. For example: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within encompassed a budget of $137 million, clocked in at a total of $85.1 million becoming one of the lowest revenue-generating adaptations of video games,[39] which results in a box office failure[40] led to the defunct of Square Pictures and departure of Hironobu Sakaguchi, the only film for a studio ever existed before the demise in the following year.[41] Other notable failures include Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009), BloodRayne (2005), Far Cry (2008), and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007), each earning a net loss of over $20 million with In the Name of the King reaching a total loss of $47 million.[42][43][44]

Filmmakers like Uwe Boll, a German writer, director, and producer whose works include House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, and Postal, all of which were almost universally panned by critics and are considered among the worst films ever made.[45] Major game developers, including Hideo Kojima and Blizzard Entertainment, refused to allow Boll from adapting their games into film.[46][47]

Paul W. S. Anderson has gained a reputation for his polarized video game adaptations in the 21st century, particularly Resident Evil series and Monster Hunter, despite his moderate commercial success from the former, spanning several films with commercial success.[48]

Critics and developers' response

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Shigeru Miyamoto addressed criticisms of video game adaptation.

Similar to comic book-based films in the past, adaptations tended to carry a reputation of lackluster quality and receive negative reaction from both film critics and fans of the source material.[49] This is generally due to difficulties in adopting a story meant to be played interactively into a linear movie-going experience.[50]

The reason for the failure of video game adaptations is that structural conversion from video game to film format can be challenging for filmmakers. Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Nintendo franchises including Mario and Zelda, said in a 2007 interview:

I think that part of the problem with translating games to movies is that the structure of what makes a good game is very different from the structure of what makes a good movie. Movies are a much more passive medium, where the movie itself is telling a story and you, as the viewer, are relaxing and taking that in passively. Whereas video games are a much more active medium where you are playing along with the story. ... I think that video games, as a whole, have a very simple flow in terms of what’s going on in the game. We make that flow entertaining by implementing many different elements to the video game to keep the player entertained. Movies have much more complex stories, or flow, to them, but the elements that affect that flow are limited in number. So I think that because these surrounding elements in these two different mediums vary so greatly, when you fail to take that into account then you run into problems.[51]

In an interview with Fortune in August 2015, Miyamoto said, "Because games and movies seem like similar mediums, people’s natural expectation is we want to take our games and turn them into movies. … I’ve always felt video games, being an interactive medium, and movies, being a passive medium, mean the two are quite different."[52]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times stated that video games are "inherently inferior to film and literature" and that "video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control."[53]

2017–present: Modern age and critical success

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Jim Carrey, who portrayed Dr. Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog series went on major critical and commercial successes, revitalized his career in the 2020s.
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Jack Black portrayed iconic roles as Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Steve in Minecraft Movie, both went to major box-office success in the 2020s.

Observers noted a substantial uptick in the critical and commercial success of video game adaptations in the late 2010s and 2020s.[54][55][56][57] Until 2019, no video game film–live-action or animated–had received a Rotten Tomatoes "fresh" rating, with a score over 60%. Since then, Detention, Detective Pikachu, The Angry Birds Movie 2, and Sonic the Hedgehog have been able to attain a "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[58][49] Both Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog posted better-than-expected domestic takes,[49] with Sonic having the highest domestic opening in 2020,[59] while Detention enjoyed strong box office success in Asia.[60][61] Sonic's success led to two sequels, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024),[62] and a fourth film is in development. As a result of their success, several video game developers began to operate their own film production companies (e.g. PlayStation Productions) to support IP-based video game films.

The success of newer video game adaptations led to television series using both live-action and animation.[63][64][65][66] Successful live-action series include The Last of Us (2023–present) and Fallout (2024–present); both were nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series.[67][68] Successful animated series during this time include Castlevania (2017–2021), Carmen Sandiego (2019–2021), Arcane (2021–2024) and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022).[69]

Creators of film and television adaptations quickly found that to help appeal them to video game audiences, they had to assure that the work is faithful to the source material, both in narratives and appearance.[70] Television adaptations have also led to growth of players in the original video games, such as the case with Cyberpunk 2077 and the Fallout series.[71][72]

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Reception

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Revenue

Main article: List of highest-grossing films based on video games

Though video game films are generally critically panned, they tend to do well from the international take at box offices. The Super Mario Bros. Movie, based on the Mario franchise, holds the highest take of any video game adaptation with US$1.36 billion, and was considered the most profitable film of 2023 by Deadline Hollywood, while the six Resident Evil films hold the highest take for a live-action series of US$1.2 billion on an average production budget between US$30 to 50 million and Pokémon is the overall highest-grossing video game film franchise with US$1.5 billion.[49][73] With Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the trilogy of Sonic films surpassed a total box office of $1 billion by the start of 2025.[74] A Minecraft Movie opened in April 2025 to over $313 million on its first weekend, the highest for a video game movie to date and breaking several other box office records.[75]

Only eight films have grossed more than $400 million in the box office worldwide (as of August 2025):[76] Warcraft (2016), Rampage (2018), Detective Pikachu (2019), Uncharted (2022), Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024), and A Minecraft Movie (2025), with The Super Mario Bros. Movie becoming the first (and so far, only) video game film to ever pass the $1 billion mark, making it one of the top 50 highest-grossing films of all time.

Awards

Television adaptations of video games dominated three divisions of Emmy Awards started in the 1990s. Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? being the first adaptation of a video game to receive nominations for and to win multiple awards, spanning three more follow-ups with similar accolades. Some films also awarded or nominated from major organizations such as Golden Globe Awards and The Game Award for Best Adaptation.

Primetime Emmys

Main articles: Primetime Emmy Awards and Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards

Daytime Emmys

Main article: Daytime Emmy Awards

Children's and Family Emmys

Main article: Children's and Family Emmy Awards

Other awards

Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? won a Peabody Award in 1992, described as "a uniquely creative and influential use of television on a topic of primary importance".[16]

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners won the Crunchyroll Anime Award for Anime of the Year in the 7th edition.[92]

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the first video game film to received major award nominations, especially the animation and original song categories, despite the film's polarized response. This including three Golden Globes (Best Animated Feature, Best Original Song, and the newly established Cinematic Achievement) and PGA Award for Best Animated Feature.[93]

Conversely, adaptations of video games received a poor reputation and garnered Razzie and other worst-contender awards. Pokémon: The First Movie received six Stinkers Bad Movie Awards nominations including a dishonorable mention of Worst Film, winning twice for Worst Achievement in Animation and Most Unwelcome Direct-to-Video Release, the latter shared with other eight Pokémon videos were released in 1999.[94] Uwe Boll also awarded a rare "Worst Career Achievement" and Worst Director awards at the 29th Golden Raspberry Awards for In the Name of the King and Postal.[95]

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