Video game adaptations continue to make a big splash in Hollywood. A Minecraft Movie has earned over $900 million across theaters worldwide. Season two of HBO’s The Last of Us garnered rave reviews, with a third season in the works. And more gaming-based films and TV shows — including the second season of Amazon’s Fallout and a sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie — are on the way.
According to the Hollywood and Games talk at GamesBeat Summit 2025 in Los Angeles, one thing that all these successful adaptations share is a commitment to authenticity. They capture the spirit of the franchise they’re based on and took time to understand what made those games so special in the first place.
“I think the thing that the top movies have done well is actually listening to the fan base,” said Baobab Studios CEO Maureen Fan at the panel. “In Hollywood, there’s this [attitude of], ‘I’m the creative, I know best.’ And I feel like the reasons why these top movies did well is they actually listened.”
Part of this involves bringing people in for focus groups, but it’s also important to regularly talk to the original creators, too. When working on adaptations of video game IP, Fan and her team meet with developers on a monthly basis to check in and ask how their audiences would feel about the project.
Luminate’s research data on the top-grossing video game-based films.
“My background is user experience research, so I really value that [process]. But that’s really something that my team has had to learn,” said Fan. “My co-founder directed all the Madagascar films. My co-chief creative officer was the sole producer of Moana. So they come from this world that’s very much ‘I know better.’ But over the last however many years we’ve been around, they’ve now got to the point where they’re craving that data. They want to talk to the audience, especially when you’re doing Gen Z stuff and you’re of a different generation.”
Another factor is the talent behind the camera. While movie and TV companies seem to be in an arms race over chasing big gaming IP, Alcon Interactive president George Collins thinks it’ll become increasingly important to pair those properties with the right directors and writers, especially those who have a unique point of view or who can say something new with the brand.
“If you think about things like Greta Gerwig doing Barbie, or [Phil] Lord and [Christopher] Miller doing Lego — those could have been really corny, awful movies,” said Collins. “But because they really had a [specific] idea, they took it in directions you wouldn’t have expected. That’s what made them good.”
But as successful as this recent slate of films and TV shows have been, there are still a lot of big names out there like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto that haven’t made the jump to Hollywood just yet. For Dan Prigg, head of Skydance Interactive, one of the major reasons for that has to do with cost.
“You’re not going to get Grand Theft Auto for anything cheap these days, and that’s just for the licensing fee, right?,” said Prigg. “And then you throw in the actual production value that you would have to input to match the level of expectation I think the audience [would have] — people would just look at the spreadsheet and be like ‘Nope, that’s a huge risk.’ It could be a huge hit, but it’s also a huge risk.”
Collins noted that a Call of Duty movie in particular has been floating around Hollywood for a little while, but the issue is less about cost and more about finding the right script and story.
“I think it’s more like you have to get a script, either a pilot or a theatrical script, that you believe in,” said Collins. “You have to be able to attach people that you know can really make a good film or a good TV show, a good showrunner. And that isn’t as easy as you think.”
Without the right talent and story behind a project, you risk damaging not only the movie’s brand, but also the reputation of the game and of the developer. Back when Fan was VP of games at Zynga, she recalled how the success of Farmville attracted someone from Hollywood who wanted to make a Farmville TV show. She said no at the time, arguing that the game was already making a lot of money and didn’t want to risk damaging its reputation.
“There’s a lot of downsides because if someone makes a crappy adaptation, they’re going to screw up my brand and jeopardize my main revenue stream or upset my audience members, my players, right? I have to really trust that I believe in this director, I believe in this script, for me to do it,” said Fan.
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