Summary
Fans of video games, movies, and movies based on video games should rejoice. 2024 wasn’t the best year for adaptations, but there’s still one hotly anticipated offering on its way.Sonic the Hedgehog3drummed up an impressive amount of excitement when it revealed its take on Shadow the Hedgehog. Conversely, the next video game movie on the docket afterSonicspeeds by will be Warner Bros.‘A Minecraft Movie. The vastly different reactions to these two films say a lot about the modern state of video game movies as an art form.
Video game movies have consistently proven their flaws, butvideo game TV shows havea much higher hit rate. The ideal visual medium for video game adaptations appears to be a serialized format. Live-action examples likeFalloutandThe Last of Usdemonstrate the potential excellence of the medium. Animated entries likeCastlevaniaandArcaneoften capture brilliant new artistic representations of their source material. Even the shows that don’t work out, like Paramount’sHalo, are probably better than if they were jammed into a two-hour package.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Pat Casey, Josh Miller, and John Whittington
Chris Bowman and Hubbel Palmer
Stars
Ben Schwartz, Keanu Reeves, James Marsden, Idris Elba, and Colleen O’Shaughnessey
Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers, and Sebastian Eugene Hansen
June 22, 2025
June 16, 2025
The firstteasers forSonic the Hedgehog 3andA Minecraft Moviecame out only a few days apart. Both caused massive uproars among fans, dominating social media for weeks. While they both sparked a notable reaction, their cultural impact couldn’t be more different. Fans are thrilled to see Shadow in all his glory. The first two films were solid family-friendly action comedies, providing plenty of hope for the third entry. Shadow’s appearance and presentation suggest a slightly more mature tone. The trailer’s action scenes seem excellent. Keanu Reeves is just as compelling as fans expected.Sonic the Hedgehog 3has engenderedtremendous hype among fans of the franchise and relative newcomers.
On the otherhand,A Minecraft Moviehasmostly gained traction through viewers making fun of it. Jack Black, looking exactly like he always does, appears as Steve in a moment that feels pulled from a low-budget SNL sketch. The film opts to use elements of the familiar blocky style while draping everything in hideous realistic textures that make the entire film look slightly terrifying. Perhaps worse than the visuals, the dialogue holds the source material at arms length in an unpleasant way. It all seems bizarrely insincere, as if they think the best way to sellA Minecraft Movieis to acknowledge their lack of interest in making it. Thewidespread negative response to the film, despite its massive appeal and almost guaranteed hit status, is almost heartening.
What makes a video game movie work?
With somany video game movies out there, it isn’t hard to tell what separates the hits from the misses.A Minecraft Moviemakes several old mistakes that fans grew tired of two decades ago.
A good video game movie needs vision
Turning a video game into a movie is like trying to condense a movie into a painting. It is inherently an act of removal. Games have all the elements that make a movie, plus the infinitepossibilities provided by interactive art. This means that any video game movie has to find a way to tell the story fans loved from the game without one of its key traits. One can watch a full playthrough of a horror game, but they won’t feel the same fear they would behind the controller. Every video game adaptation presents new challenges. TheUnchartedmovie, for example, had to do material from the game without just making a shoddyIndiana Jonesknock-off. There has to be something in the story that escapes the source material and creates a new piece of art.
A good video game movie needs commitment
The list of differences between the two cinematic adaptations ofSuper Mariois probably longer than either film’s script. One of the key alterations Illumination and Nintendo made when they picked up the torch was the central premise. Both films see New York plumbers wind up in an alternate world,but only the 2023 adaptationpresents anything vaguely similar to the Mushroom Kingdom. This isn’t to say that every video game movie has to be rigorously faithful to its source material, but it needs to do more than throw together half-formed ideas with just enough callbacks to sell tickets and merchandise. Even if their bold direction has little to do with the game in the title, they have to find an interesting take and stick to it.
A good video game movie needs sincerity
The sneering self-sabotage ofA Minecraft Movie’s dialogue put a bad taste in most viewers’ mouths. People are sick of the eye-rolling irony routine from major studios. They’re doing all the things they’re supposed to be making fun of, then hoping that a wink and a nod will win the audience over to their side. It’s not a comedian telling a joke; it’s a giant company trying to gloss over the fact that their material is old and bad.Look back atDetective Pikachu. It was by no means a perfect movie, but its genuine joy and love for simply exploring its Pokémon world was more than enough to win fans over. Only an open heart can capture a concept likeMinecraftthe way it should be depicted.
Are video game movies finally like any other adaptation?
So, the two most notable upcoming video game movies seem to represent the polar opposites of quality. What does that mean? Surely this is superior to the era that generated theidea of the “video game movie curse.” The first several video game movies were generally perceived as bad. Modern arguments for camp classics likeStreet FighterandMortal Kombatare well worth considering, but the consensus is or was negative. For some reason, the public agreed that a few unimpressive examples proved the paradigm that no video game movie could ever be good. Ignore the several excellent animated adaptations and the quality of several hidden gems over the years. This widespread condemnation has never extended to any other medium. There areenough terrible adaptations of books, comics, TV shows, toys, and other movies to drown out all the video game movies ever made, but no one ever wrote off any of those concepts. Why did video games get singled out?
The combination of repeated disappointment and the perceived superiority of filmmakers led gamers to swear off the genre. The dominant belief among many fans and publications was that Hollywood couldn’t make a good video game movie because they didn’t take the medium seriously. An adaptation of a book can be a classic, but no one wasever going to getJawsorThe Exorcistout of interactive media. In truth, this was always an issue of time. Games were too new. Now that they make more money than any other medium, they enjoy the privileges of established media. Today, the general expectation of failure is starting to fade. Enough good examples have cut through the noise, and each new adaptation gets a fair shot. That’s why two video game movies can drop trailers around the same time and go viral for opposite reasons.
Finally, every video game movie has to stand on its own. The world can treat movies about games the way they treat movies about books. As the medium continues to age, fans may see more engaging material emerge.Sonic the Hedgehog 3andA Minecraft Movieget their time in the spotlight like any other blockbusters. Finally, the video game movie can just drop next to any other movie and exist as they always should have.
