Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed, and 5 video game movies that should be rebooted as TV shows
By Monita Mohan
Why would you condense an hours-long video game into a two-hour film? We take a look at five video game movies that should be rebooted as TV shows.
Video game movies go hand-in-hand with the phrase ‘box office disaster’. Plenty of people believe that the interactive nature of games simply doesn’t translate to the big screen. Hours-long play is condensed into a two-hour narrative and the three-act structure gives these stories an unnecessarily slow build and a pared-down denouement. Everything about a film adaptation is the anti-thesis of what video games are about.
But some properties deserve to transcend their original medium. To give a wider audience the opportunity to enjoy these stories and characters, perhaps video games should be adapted to the small screen instead.
As we saw with Netflix’s The Witcher, the episodic nature of television shows allows creators to build an overarching storyline over the course of a season. At the same time, characters are free to go off on side quests, discover new allies, unearth treasures and survive boss battles.
With that in mind, we list five video game movies that should be rebooted as TV shows.
5. Silent Hill
More from Editorial
- Show Snob’s Premiere Review: Watch, Pass, Wait and See (December 4, 2023)
- 5 Female Marvel characters we want to see return to the MCU
- Show Snob’s Premiere Review: Watch, Pass, Wait and See (November 27, 2023)
- 5 TV Show Advent Calendars you’ll want this holiday season (2023)!
- Show Snob’s Premiere Review: Watch, Pass, Wait and See (November 20, 2023)
The Silent Hill game series has numerous installments – squeezing all of those stories and characters into a feature film was not a good plan. While the 2006 film raked in a fair amount of money and concentrated on the 1999 installment of the game, the creators coasted on the visuals and atmosphere.
It felt like the filmmakers were far more interested in jump scares and giving their actors something to do rather than capture the essence of playing a video game.
The eventual product was clunky and haphazard. Let’s not even get us started on the forgettable sequel.
A series adaptation could explore the myriad endings that a player would encounter in the game. Every season premiere could introduce the main character arcs before branching off into alternate endings. In essence, each season could potentially concentrate on one game installment, making the show an anthology series set in the same world. In this way, viewers would get a real feel for how scary and expansive the story of Silent Hill can get.