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[RetroGamingUK]

Video Games Like Minecraft Are Replacing Superheroes As Hollywood’s Dominant IP

Insiders say A Minecraft Movie’s surprise box-office success shows that “if you make the right movie based on a game, people will come.”

www.vulture.com

In an era when it's not uncommon for a successful video game to gross $20 billion across its commercial lifetime — but when gaming is still regarded as a kind of nerdy cousin to Hollywood by cultural gatekeepers — the movie version of Five Nights at Freddy's (which took in $297.1 million on a $20 million budget), Paramount's reliably lucrative Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and 2023's $1.36 billion–grossing The Super Mario Bros. Movie all punched above their presumed weight.

With the understanding that video-game movies are fast replacing superhero fare as Hollywood's most reliably lucrative product, Paramount announced a January 2027 release date for The Angry Birds Movie 3 earlier this week. And anticipation continues to build for Sony's live-action adaptation of the long-running Nintendo video-game series The Legend of Zelda (due out March 2027). "That's a home run. That's the one everyone is excited about," says our first rival-studio exec. "But the one game everyone is chasing is Grand Theft Auto. That's billion-dollar box office right there. Rockstar Games will never do it, though. I keep telling our people, 'Go have dinner with them. Go have drinks. Do whatever you have to do. Get that franchise!"

More at the link

 

[TintoConCasera]

Stuff for kids makes money because kids have no taste.

 

[Badlucktroll]

We need the hero we deserve in cinemas……SOLID SNAKE

 

[Magic Carpet]

Sonic and Mario meet in Minecraft to save the world. The Gameverse End Game.

 

[March Climber]

Stuff for kids makes money because kids have no taste.

There was a small period of time when they were trying to make sure that the quality was up to par, but after Five Nights and this latest Minecraft movie, I think they are unfortunately getting the message that the quality doesn't matter that much for the kid-centric franchises.

Just insert things that make people go 'wow cool' like cameos, nostalgic pulls, and meme humor and it still makes enough money if the I.P. is popular enough. It feels bad because I think better Minecraft and Five Nights movies could theoretically exist.

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

Video Games Like Minecraft Are Replacing Superheroes As Hollywood’s Dominant IP

Insiders say A Minecraft Movie’s surprise box-office success shows that “if you make the right movie based on a game, people will come.”

www.vulture.com

More at the link

Who cares about Hollywood, video games are bigger and better.

 

[Deerock71]

Sonic and Mario meet in Minecraft to save the world. The Gameverse End Game.

 

[Gaiff]

>It's not uncommon for successful video games to gross $20B in their commercial lifetime

Fucking what? How many games have grossed $20B? I suspect the list is incredibly short.

 

[Hookshot]

Sonic and Mario meet in Minecraft to save the world. The Gameverse End Game.

That's just Smash Bros but Nintendo were too slow to get into movies for that to happen now.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

 

[Deerock71]

>It's not uncommon for successful video games to gross $20B in their commercial lifetime

Fucking what? How many games have grossed $20B? I suspect the list is incredibly short.

That would be the Minecrafts, the Mario Karts, and the GTA V's of the world.

 

[adamsapple]

>It's not uncommon for successful video games to gross $20B in their commercial lifetime

Fucking what? How many games have grossed $20B? I suspect the list is incredibly short.

Probably your Fifa, CoD's and your GTA's.

 

[Chuck Berry]

When are we getting a Mario Kart movie

Surprised we haven't read rumors about it. There's an easy billion right there.

Probably after Kart World...

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

We need the hero we deserve in cinemas……SOLID SNAKE

You will get Jonesy from Fortnite and you will be happy.

Also, you will get the Roblox movie 6 months later.

 

[Chuck Berry]

Or you get total bombs like Ratchet & Clank

Which is weird because it seems like such an easy slam dunk

 

[peek]

 

[N0S]

Mass Effect when

 

[StueyDuck]

We aren't at that point yet.

But it was only a matter of time. We have tapped out what potential there was with comics/cartoons and books. Games are the natural next step in that process.

but I wouldn't consider Minecraft or Mario an indication of anything. I don't think we are at the Marvel point yet where you can throw out the gaming equivalent of Ant-Man and have it be a smash hit..

 

[Barakov]

Sounds like bad news to me. Videogames and Hollywood are way too close to each other to be honest.

 

[LakeOf9]

Bad and vapid video game adaptations are exactly what I have wanted from Hollywood all along!

 

[Icymanipulator]

It's the next thing for Hollywood to mine.
Also makes sense as old directors and producers age out, the new generation who grew up with video games in a major way is taking over.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Or you get total bombs like Ratchet & Clank

Which is weird because it seems like such an easy slam dunk

Minecraft and Mario are about 100x and 40x bigger than Ratchet and Clank. Non gamers know what Mario and Minecraft are.

 

[MSduderino]

>It's not uncommon for successful video games to gross $20B in their commercial lifetime

Fucking what? How many games have grossed $20B? I suspect the list is incredibly short.

ya, that's gotta be complete BS. like how? 20B/60 is 333 million. I know that's not exactly the right math, but I don't think any video game has grossed $20B.

 

[Durin]

Of course, film industry sucks at making their own new IP hit, so they gotta do more adaptation farming of another medium.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Gaming nerds get their guard up about stupid things, I say of a talented director can make a movie about a video game character than go for it.

 

[Holammer]

Or you get total bombs like Ratchet & Clank

Which is weird because it seems like such an easy slam dunk

They did the classic mistake, they screwed with the built in audience.
Fans hated the movie and the game reboot.

Sly Cooper could be a good movie too, but they would probably write Sly as a feckless loser with a piddling hero's journey. Carmelita would become strong independent woman (close enough!) that don't need no man, because a will they/won't they dynamic is beneath Hollywood writers today.

 

[Gaiff]

ya, that's gotta be complete BS. like how? 20B/60 is 333 million. I know that's not exactly the right math, but I don't think any video game has grossed $20B.

I know Candy Crush did back in 2023, but it's one of the highest grossing games ever. I can't imagine more than 10 games making that much money.

I'm thinking WoW, Minecraft, Candy Crush, and some other mobile garbage, but the list is tiny.

Edit: Never mind, Minecraft and WoW don't come close.

That would be the Minecrafts, the Mario Karts, and the GTA V's of the world.

Probably your Fifa, CoD's and your GTA's.

I checked and no, neither GTA nor Minecraft even sniff $20B. The others are entire franchises, so maybe, but I doubt Mario Kart got anywhere close to $20B. The franchise hasn't sold 400M copies.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

I'm so burnt out on superhero movies and this is even worse.

 

[Danjin44]

There VERY few movie and TV show thats based on games I liked...

Edgrunnner's case I even like this one more than actual game itself.

 

[Doom85]

There VERY few movie and TV show thats based on games I liked...

Edgrunnner's case I even like this one more than actual game itself.

You don't have to know a single thing about League of Legends to appreciate how awesome the show Arcane is.

 

[Alebrije]

We need the hero we deserve in cinemas……SOLID SNAKE

 

[ZehDon]

Sonic and Mario meet in Minecraft to save the world. The Gameverse End Game.

I hate how likely this is to actually happen.

 

[Hari Seldon]

I guess I will continue to not see any movies in theaters lmao.

 

[ReBurn]

Hollywood has been out of ideas for years

 

[Hawk The Slayer]

I'll rather see more of Leon, Ada, Jill, Chris, etc from Resident Evil, Eve from Stellar Blade, Snake from Metal Gears, Tifa, Aerith from FFVII, Ratchet and Clank from the Ratchet and Clank series, Captain Titus from Space Marine, Lin, Zelda from the Legend of Zelda etc etc etc than lots of Hollywood hero movie stars these days.

 

[Fafalada]

Probably your Fifa, CoD's and your GTA's.

Fifa and COD getting replaced annually makes that rather unlikely.

That said - I imagine LoL, Candy Crush and a few others are close to there. Alongside Genshin(ok that's still a few years to go but it'll get there) and Fortnite of course.

I know Candy Crush did back in 2023, but it's one of the highest grossing games ever. I can't imagine more than 10 games making that much money.

Yea the list is very short - even the biggest hitters are lucky to cross 1B/year - and then you need to be 'that big' for at least a decade to cross 20B - which even fewer games do.

Franchise IP list would change things - but that's neither here nor there - there are presumably movie franchises (most of them owned by Disney I imagine) that crossed that too.

That would be the Minecrafts, the Mario Karts, and the GTA V's of the world.

GTA officially reports less than half of that, and I don't see how MK would get there since it's not monetized online at all. The unit sales aren't nearly enough, even if you cheat and count entire franchise.
Minecraft is under half a billion annually 'after' MS grew the revenues - so it has at least another 10-15 years to go.

 

[Sgt.Asher]

We can go from vapid cape shit to vapid gamer shit. Woooo

 

[adamsapple]

Fifa and COD getting replaced annually makes that rather unlikely.

Maybe they meant franchises as a whole. A single game is probably not achieving $20bn in the "uncommon" way the article talks about it, either that or the writer has no idea and just threw a generalized number.

 

[Gaiff]

Maybe they meant franchises as a whole. A single game is probably not achieving $20bn in the "uncommon" way the article talks about it, either that or the writer has no idea and just threw a generalized number.

They have to. $20B is an absurd amount of money. Even over 20 years, it'd $1B a year.

Hell, most AAA franchises don't even approach that number with games sales alone. COD apparently did $30B.

 

[Fafalada]

Maybe they meant franchises as a whole.

The wording in the article is 'very' clear that it's not referring to franchises.
"it's not uncommon for a successful video game to gross $20 billion across its commercial lifetime"
Note the singular 'game' and 'commercial lifetime'.
They either did no research or are just hoping people don't pay too much attention to what they wrote.

 

[Fake]

Stuff for kids makes money because kids have no taste.

Or because kid have their parents credit card.

 

[Punished Miku]

Horizon movie incoming.

 

[poppabk]

We need the hero we deserve in cinemas……SOLID SNAKE

We already had two movies, one a classic, one not so much.

 

[Shubh_C63]

They see how much money they could make, and yet they allowed BORDERLANDS to exist.

 

[Plague Doctor]

I called this back in 2023.

We are entering a new era of cinema slop.

Real talk though: We will get a straight up banger or two here and there but yeahhhhh mostly slop.

These hills are a fucking gold rush for nostalgia, untapped ips, and putting asses into seats with the right properties and marketing.

You thought video game writing was bad? It will be fucking shakespeare to the film adaptions.


Soooo the million dollar question, who's gonna make a deal with Disney? Poppa Iger needs his IP fix.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

Hollywood is a complete joke, of course they'll move on to video games. We'll even get a few really excellent movies out of it, at first. Then it will devolve to the same regurgitated shit that Marvel has become.

 

[Chuck Berry]

They should re release Super Mario Bros w/ Hoskins and Leguizamo, the original Mortal Kombat movie and that shitty Double Dragon with Scott Wolf to test the hype

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Or you get total bombs like Ratchet & Clank

Which is weird because it seems like such an easy slam dunk

LOL... The movie had a 20 million dollar budget... it was produced by rainmaker entertainment...

 

[Bernardougf]

Its ok some gaming companies are trying really hard to follow Hollywood later years steps.... a true formula for success Im told.

 

[Zannegan]

They should re release Super Mario Bros w/ Hoskins and Leguizamo, the original Mortal Kombat movie and that shitty Double Dragon with Scott Wolf to test the hype

Best I can do is Mortal Kombat Kidz in the style of the Teen Titans Movie.