When video games hit the popular culture in the early 80’s they were an instant smash. By the 90’s they had become a staple of home entertainment. So with the game properties becoming so well known in the public eye movie studios started optioning the bigger games for films. 

The first round of video game films hit in the early 90’s with live action films like Super Mario Brothers, Double Dragon and Mortal Kombat. In addition to the live action films there were animated versions of Street Fighter and Fatal Fury from Japan.  The animated films were well received but the live action films were met to generally bad reviews.

In the last few years video game films have improved with better production values. Currently the genre can boast several commercially successful films like the Resident Evil franchise and the most successful video game adaptation ever, Tomb Raider starring Angelina Jolie.

With increased competition between game publishers even more games are being released every day which has lead to more games heading to the big screen. Popular games like Doom, Dead or Alive, Final Fantasy and Silent Hill have all made it to the big screen. Newer games have been optioned as well like Gears of War, Postal and the on again off again production of Halo.

One other recent successful game based film was the Luc Besson (director of The Professional and The Fifth Element) production of the popular game Hitman. The film is  based on the top-selling, award-winning videogame franchise and follows a genetically engineered, elite assassin known only as Agent 47 whose sole purpose is to rid the world of its most sinister and deadly criminals. The film stars Timothy Olyphant (Live Free Or Die Hard) as Agent 47, Olga Kurylenko (Bond 22) as his love interest and Dougray Scott (Mission Impossible: II) as the Interpol investigator obsessed with capturing him. The film opened well at the box office and was a hit in the US and internationally.

Hollywood is fairly predictable in that when a genre is successful they tend to produce more films in that genre. With that said we can definitely expect more feature films based on video games and sequels to the better performing films like Tomb Raider and Hitman.

For more info on Hitman check out our CraveOnline Spotlight on Hitman.