It’s been a question on the mind of video game fans around the world for many years: why are most video game movies the way they are?
Well a new book titled Lights, Camera, GAME OVER!: How Video Game Movies Get Made from Flickering Myth’s Luke Owen looks behind the scenes of some of the biggest video game movies of all-time, including Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Resident Evil and more. Owen interviewed over 40 filmmakers who worked on these movies to bring you the true stories behind them.
Since 1993, Hollywood has been rendering popular video games on the silver screen, mainly to critical derision and box office failure. While a few have succeeded, many have been hailed as the “worst movie ever” and left gamers asking: how did that get made?
This in-depth and entertaining work recounts the production histories of many of these movies, revealing the sometimes inspired and convoluted path Hollywood took to turn pixels into living flesh, with insights from more than 40 industry insiders, including film directors Paul W. S. Anderson (Resident Evil), Simon West (Tomb Raider), and Steven de Souza (Street Fighter). Find out about:
- How Nintendo nearly swept Super Mario Bros. under the rug
- How Street Fighter took more inspiration from a toy than the game
- A Tekken film that nearly starred Jackie Chan and Jet Li
- Live action versions of Sonic the Hedgehog, Metroid and Pac-Man that nearly got made
- A Hitman movie with one of the best scripts 20th Century Fox ever read
- How zombie maestro George A. Romero nearly directed Resident Evil
- Why Pixels was touted to be the new Ghostbusters, but was nearly Grown Ups 3
Check out the full list of interviews here.
Lights, Camera, GAME OVER!: How Video Game Movies Get Made is available now from all good book stores. Order your copy here.
Originally published August 1, 2017. Updated November 30, 2022.
