YoIn the first days of its release, Fallout, Prime Video’s adaptation of the post-apocalyptic video game franchise, has become a hit with global audiences, reaching the top of the UK charts and ranking among the top three titles Prime’s most viewed. ever.
On Friday, just a week after the show debuted in more than 240 countries and territories, Amazon announced that it had renewed it for a second season. “The bar was set high for lovers of this iconic video game and so far it seems like we’ve exceeded their expectations, while attracting millions of new fans to the franchise,” the streamer said.
The success of the show, which is set 200 years after nuclear Armageddon and stars Ella Purnell, Kyle MacLachlan and Aaron Moten, demonstrates the extent to which video game adaptations have improved in recent years and have finally crossed over into the mainstream.
A string of critical and commercial successes, including last year’s HBO series The Last of Us, which won eight Emmy Awards, and The Super Mario Bros Movie, which grossed $1.36 billion at the global box office, has led to market experts comparing them to Marvel adaptations, which have long generated huge profits for studios.
“Game adaptations are the new superhero movies,” said Rhys Elliott, games industry analyst at MiDiA Research. “Recent box office numbers, online sentiment, and superhero movie reviews indicate that consumers and critics alike are experiencing superhero fatigue.
“But game adaptations offer an oasis for film and television studios. The huge box office numbers for last year’s Mario movie and the high critical scores for shows like Fallout and The Last of Us are extremely telling. “The games industry has always understood the power of its intellectual property, and now Hollywood and television are finally starting to understand it.”
According to Elliot, the Super Mario Bros. movie was the biggest turning point for studios to realize the potential of gaming. Not only was it the biggest game adaptation in terms of revenue, but it was also the second-biggest animated film, surpassing giants like Frozen and Despicable Me. On the television front, shows like The Witcher and Cyberpunk, as well as The Last of Us and Fallout, have shown that video game stories can be part of the cultural zeitgeist outside of gaming.
The Minecraft adaptation will hit screens next year, while a live-action film based on the Legend of Zelda franchise is in development and Margot Robbie is reportedly working on a Sims movie.
“This is symbolic of the shift towards gaming intellectual property, and the shift will continue with each new success story. If studios weren’t paying attention to games before, they certainly are now,” Elliot said.
Video game fans have expressed relief that the so-called adaptation curse has been lifted. They attribute this to two things: modern adaptations that stick more closely to the tone of the games while expanding the story, and studios spending money to get some of the biggest actors and producers in film and television.
Fallout, for example, was able to speak to long-time fans of the games and newcomers by setting the story after the events of the game. Its producer and director, Jonathan Nolan, was given the reins to do this because he was previously obsessed with the game. “Clearly he had played a lot” said Todd Howard, the developer of the modern Fallout video games.. “He could speak authentically and had a vision for what made him tick.”
The Guardian’s video game editor Keza MacDonald wrote that Hollywood had abandoned its previous reservations. “In a single year, the curse of the terrible video game adaptation has been broken so completely that movie production companies now seem to be diving into a kind of gold rush,” he said.
Rob Mitchell, director of theatrical insights at Gower Street Analytics, said video game adaptations had been a regular part of Hollywood’s approach for several decades, dating back at least to the early ’90s adaptations of Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter starring by Jean-Claude Van. Damn. Others have cited a litany of failed attempts (think Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed, Resident Evil or Max Payne).
But, Mitchell said, individual successes boost confidence. “That way, you could compare the current positivity to that of the early 2000s, before the MCU. [Marvel Cinematic Universe] days of comic book adaptations where the successes of films like X-Men and Spider-Man brought greater confidence in comic book adaptations.
“However, where the MCU developed a singular and unified vision under the direction of Kevin Feige [president of Marvel Studios]There is still no apparent equivalent of that behind video game properties.”
According to Mitchell, one of the key reasons producers were interested in taking advantage of video games was their global recognition. For example, 52.9% of the $291.5 million box office receipts from last year’s hit horror film Five Nights at Freddy’s came from outside the United States. This figure increased to 63.5% (from $407 million) for Uncharted, starring Tom Holland, and 91.4% (from $312 million) for Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. “Attracting a global audience is the cornerstone of any successful franchise,” he said.
It was a sentiment echoed by Tim Richards, chief executive of Vue cinemas, who said the key to the adaptations’ success was their familiarity with a wide range of audiences.
“With video game adaptations, as with adaptations of books and other materials where there may be public recognition, it is easier to launch it because there is already a recognizable name,” he said. “Look at Barbie, she has recognizable characters that people grew up with, she knows them and she loves them. It’s about familiarity. “I think we’re going to see more of that.”