Warner Bros. | Universal Studios | Amazon PrimeHollywood is finally leveling up.For decades, studios have tried to capitalize on the financial success and cultural relevance of video games, but it’s only been in the past few years that things have clicked.With the box office achievements of Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and Warner Bros.’ “A Minecraft Movie,” alongside television hits like Amazon Prime Video’s “Fallout” and HBO’s “The Last of Us,” Hollywood has doubled down on its investment in content based on video game franchises and related intellectual property.”Adaptations of popular games used to be met with a high degree of cynicism and creative misfires, but recent blockbusters and commercial hits have reversed the curse,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory.Just this week, Paramount announced it would develop a live-action Call of Duty movie and distribute the latest Street Fighter adaptation as part of a three-year distribution deal with Legendary. Also on the development docket are features based on “Elden Ring,” “Helldivers,” “Horizon Zero Dawn” and “The Legend of Zelda.”On the television side, treatments for Tomb Raider, God of War, Mass Effect and Assassin’s Creed are in the works.”Video game movies and TV shows are not new, but they’re certainly getting a better volume and they’re getting better,” said Alicia Reese, analyst at Wedbush.Start screenThe first video game adaptation to hit theaters was 1993’s “Super Mario Brothers.” The live-action feature based on the hit Nintendo property tallied $20.9 million domestically at the time and was widely panned by critics.For the next two decades, Hollywood managed to make enough back on production budgets that studios kept justifying future adaptations, but there always seemed to be something lost in translation between the game controller and the theater.Between 1993 and 2018, only three video game-based films generated more than $100 million at the domestic box office — 2001’s “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” 2016’s “The Angry Birds Movie” and 2018’s “Rampage,” according to data from Comscore.During this same period, not a single video game movie generated a “fresh” rating from review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The site’s rating has become a benchmark over the past two decades, as moviegoers often consult the website before they decide to go see a film.Rotten Tomatoes aggregates reviews from major publications and reputable blogs and determines what percentage of those reviews were positive versus negative. If at least 60% of a film’s reviews are positive, it will receive a red tomato, which is considered “fresh.” If it gets less than 60%, it is given a green splat.Next levelAnd then something shifted in 2019.Warner Bro.’s “Pokémon Detective Pikachu” not only hauled in $144 million domestically, it scored a 68% “fresh” rating. The film became the second-highest video game adaptation ever with $433.5 million in global receipts. Universal’s 2016 “Warcraft” was the only film with higher ticket sales at the time, with $433.6 million worldwide; however, only $47.3 million of that came from domestic audiences, Comscore reported.Ben Schwartz voices Sonic in Paramount Pictures’ “Sonic the Hedgehog.”Paramount PicturesA month before pandemic shutdowns, Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog” hit theaters, earning a 64% “fresh” rating and zapping up $144 million domestically and $319 million globally.Its run was cut short, but audience turnout and enthusiasm brought two more theatrical Sonic films and a spin-off streaming show called “Knuck …
