Movie based on video games? Video games based on movies? What the deuce?

There are a ton of movies that try to have a video game come out the same time the movie is released. One genre in particular comes to mind. Superhero films. While superhero movies such as Spider-Man, Superman, Fantastic Four, Green Lantern can make big bucks in the box office opening weekend the same cannot be said about their video game counterparts. The reason for this is because most exceptionally good video games tend to take over a year to develop to have it be playable on consoles. There is another reason why movies based on video games tend to be a disappointment to the fans. The reason is because most superhero movies tend to 2 hours long and have only one villain in it while video games are much longer than a 2 hour movie. It is harder for the video game developers to create the characters from the movie when the movie itself has barley begun pre-production. There are exceptions to the bad video games. Games such as Spider-Man, Goldeneye 007, Ghostbusters: The video game are great and well loved because not only are they faithful adaptions of the movies they are based on, they have gameplay that is easy to understand and easy to adapt to.

While some video games based on movies can turn out bad, there are movie based on video games that can be equally as bad. Movies such as Ecks vs. Sever, Max Payne, Street Fighter are not faithful adaptions of the games they are based on. One of the reasons for this is translation. Video games are difficult to translate because there is so much content within a game that cannot be put into a two hour movie. There are however exceptions to this. Movies like Chronicles of Riddick, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine were not that great. Their video game counterparts however where very well liked due to the factor that they take you beyond where the movie stops.

All in all I believe that movies and video games should respect each other and work closely so that they may form a great piece of entertainment.

http://www.metacritic.com/feature/best-and-worst-movies-based-on-videogames

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/717406/the-best-video-games-based-on-movies/

http://www.watchvideogames.com/top-10-best-movie-based-video-games/

American Remakes

Earlier today I read an article online stating that the "Akira" has been put on hold. The reason why this movie has been put on hold is because Warner Bros. wants to spend less money that what was originally intended for the movie because their are no big actors attached to the movie. I can understand where they are coming from. They are afraid that they will lose money since no one will know who the stars of the movie are. I think they should be less worried about not having big named stars and concentrate on leaving the budget the way it was intended to be. "Akira" should not be a movie that has very little special effects, it should have Michael Bay size effects. One reason I bring up "Akira" is because the major film studios here in the United States like to remake a lot of foreign films. Personally I do not like it due to the fact that we are taking someones original film and messing with it.

Speaking of "Akira" (which is a Japanese animated movie) there are a few American remakes of foreign films that come to mind such as "Ju-on: The Grudge" and "Let The Right One In". While the latter remake was not a box office hit the former remake was. I believe the reason for this is because "The Grudge" changes many elements that made original movie great. With "Let Me In" the remake was almost an exact duplicate of the original with the exception of different actors. Even with the success of "Let Me In" I do not think Hollywood should resort to remake any foreign film because it is lazy to just take someone else's work of art and try to copy it and pass it off as if it was their own work. It can be successful or a complete failure but I know personally I would not like anyone to remake anything I have done.


http://www.slashfilm.com/akira-pause-warner-bros-budget/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/grudge/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/let_me_in/