Hollywood Is Finally Noticing Gaming’s Huge Fan Base

11th October 2024

Hollywood Is Finally Noticing Gaming’s Huge Fan Base

Creative arts have been crossing over and borrowing influence from each other’s respective pools for centuries—perhaps it’s taken Hollywood slightly longer to tune into gaming, as it’s a creative industry that has only recently established itself over the last decade and a half.

Sure, some of the greatest gaming titles generated billions of dollars worth of profit. Still, for Hollywood, which isn’t just a focal point in movie history but a broader depiction and figurehead for American arts, gaming still hadn’t proven itself to be an authentic influence on movie and TV ideas.

Exploring the Popularity of Traditional Gaming Sectors

That’s not to say indie film directors and creators weren’t exploring the options, but the big hitters with the big budgets in Los Angeles didn’t fancy exploring it in detail until recently. There are exceptions to this rule, such as casino gaming, which has been featured in Hollywood for over 100 years.

Some of the greatest films ever created, from Casablanca to Dr No, Casino Royale, and Casino (1995), all feature casino games with universal appeal and popularity. Some in the film industry will have casino gaming as a separate entity from gaming in the modern-day sense. While it is true that there are all types of casino games, some of which stretch back 400 years, and that the modern-day equivalent encompasses online providers and traditional ones, it’s fair to say that the casino gaming industry fell into the realms of traditional entertainment.

Hollywood, especially at the turn of this century, viewed gaming as a potential fad or something that wouldn’t have the legs to crossover and become profitable. Still, as the profit from the gaming industry became undeniable, it became impossible to ignore.

Early 21st Century

To say Hollywood is only now noticing the potential of the gaming industry is probably slightly off the mark. While it might not have realized the industry’s full potential immediately, there was a concerted and measured effort to try and bridge the gap between games and movies and bring more gamers into cinemas.

Angelina Jolie was the first A-lister Hollywood name to put her name and image behind a gaming crossover when she starred in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in 2001. By all accounts, the film was a box office success, resulting in several more recent remakes that were pretty well-received by critics.

Looking to strike while the iron was hot, some film companies ramped up their interest in other popular video gaming titles. However, they didn’t quite reach the same popularity and audience as Angelina Jolie playing Lara Croft.

The following year, Resident Evil came out, and although critics heavily panned it, the collection of films and the franchise that has followed in the 22 years since have made it one of the most profitable film series based on a video game. It even took a stab at the 3D film revolution that emerged from the billion-dollar success of Avatar.

Both of these titles set the foundation for the remarkable success that gaming films have recently experienced since the beginning of this decade, and while many movie experts and critics thought it may have happened sooner, the growth in gaming communities and, crucially, the quality of animated movie design have been high.

The Golden Age of Gaming Movie Crossovers

In hindsight, it seemed pretty evident that fusing the highest-selling games of all time with cutting-edge animation and a big budget would be a pretty good recipe for a popular film. Although technically, the highest-grossing movie franchise based on a game is Pokemon, a lot of that is because there are over two dozen movies within the franchise.

Recent success stories, like Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros., have shown that there’s a gigantic market of gamers, whether current gamers or those looking to reignite the nostalgia of retro games, who are willing to travel to the cinema to see what these crossovers have to offer.

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 scooped up nearly half a billion at the box office, and with Jim Carrey lined up for Sonic The Hedgehog 3, it finally appears as though Hollywood isn’t just noticing the potential of gaming crossovers but actively putting their money where their mouth is.

Final Thoughts

Reinventing or visiting ideas and characters from previous generations is a familiar blueprint in Hollywood. However, just because they consistently try this formula, doesn’t always mean it will succeed. There are plenty of gaming crossover films that have struggled to break even at the box office, but now that the genre is seeing significant budgets, A-listers scrambling to get their name involved, and animation that is truly top of the range, it feels like there’s plenty more legs in this golden age.

This gives the directors who tackle these crossovers carte blanche to create films that will become some of the year’s highest-grossing. Although Hollywood isn’t in the business of giving directors free rein, if it’s an idea that works and sequels and franchises continue to bring in profits from the enormous, global gaming fan base, then get used to the idea of seeing these films on our screens for a good while.

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