{"id":629913,"date":"2023-04-16T09:49:50","date_gmt":"2023-04-16T14:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/16\/here-are-5-reasons-why-gaming-ip-is-hollywoods-next-big-money-spinner\/"},"modified":"2023-04-16T09:49:50","modified_gmt":"2023-04-16T14:49:50","slug":"here-are-5-reasons-why-gaming-ip-is-hollywoods-next-big-money-spinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/16\/here-are-5-reasons-why-gaming-ip-is-hollywoods-next-big-money-spinner\/","title":{"rendered":"Here are 5 reasons why gaming IP is Hollywood\u2019s next big money spinner"},"content":{"rendered":"

The stunning success<\/a> of the \u201cSuper Mario Bros. Movie\u201d shows that video game intellectual properties are ripe for film and television adaptation. If the last 10 years were the decade of superhero films and comic book adaptations, the next decade might very well become Hollywood\u2019s video game era.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSuper Mario\u201d \u2014\u00a0which was produced for roughly $100 million by Nintendo, Illumination and Universal Pictures and earned over $200 million<\/a> in its five-day demostic debut \u2014 is just the tip of the iceberg. HBO\u2019s \u201cThe Last of Us\u201d series<\/a> took the entertainment world by storm in January, and streaming platforms from Netflix to Paramount+<\/a> have begun to snap up other popular gaming IPs such as \u201cFallout\u201d and \u201cMass Effect.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Hollywood\u2019s flirtation with video game adaptations is still in its relatively early stages, but it\u2019s shaping up to be a romance for the ages. Digiday spoke to the experts to figure out why gaming IPs have become the next big money maker for the film and TV industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here are five reasons:<\/p>\n

1. Gaming has finally become a multi-generational activity<\/h2>\n

By now, popular gaming franchises such as \u201cMario\u201d have been around for decades \u2014\u00a0which means multiple generations have grown up hopping on Goombas and defeating Bowser. When the live action \u201cSuper Mario Bros.\u201d film came out in 1993, kids may have been excited, but their parents likely rolled their eyes at the concept of a video-game-based movie.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last weekend\u2019s box office numbers show that parents and children alike showed up in force to watch the \u201cSuper Mario Bros. Movie\u201d \u2014\u00a0and the film was chock-full of references to Mario games young and old, ensuring there was something for every generation of fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were all of these references that folks like me, who are in their forties, recognized from the game I played 15 years ago, even if it was only a passing moment in the movie,\u201d said Jonathan Stringfield, vp of global business research and marketing at Activision Blizzard Media. \u201cIt had all these nice hooks within it, keeping even someone who is ostensibly not within the target demographic well-engaged with the film through nostalgia and familiarity with the IP.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

2. Video game movies are actually good now<\/h2>\n

Critics might disagree, but the 96 percent Rotten Tomatoes audience score<\/a> for the \u201cSuper Mario Bros. Movie\u201d does not lie. As the storytelling of video games themselves improve, film and television studios are investing more resources into their game adaptations, creating a perfect storm for the development of genuinely high-quality adaptations such as \u201cThe Last of Us.\u201d Audiences are rewarding this increase in quality by showing up at the box office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese projects are given more resources, and the creative teams behind them are given more freedom,\u201d said Margaret Boykin, vp of Ubisoft Film and Television. \u201cWhere adaptations of games have suffered in the past is in their inability to deviate from the source material and make important distinctions between the right storytelling for games vs. films and television series. There is a misconception at networks and studios that gamers will reject anything that isn\u2019t game canon. Now, adaptations are being applauded for their additions to the game lore.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Gaming IP has ample potential for the creation of cinematic universes<\/h2>\n

The success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has put film and television studios on alert for the next properties that might be adapted into a cohesive cinematic universe \u2014\u00a0but there are few forms of media whose long-term storytelling and cross-pollination of characters are as deep as comic books. But one form of media that could rival comics in its potential for the development of a cinematic universe is gaming; after all, the world of \u201cMario\u201d is populated by dozens of memorable characters, only a fraction of whom showed up in the \u201cSuper Mario Bros. Movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next big cinematic universe may very well be the NCU \u2014\u00a0the Nintendo Cinematic Universe. \u201cNot a lot of studios have that depth of IP to tap into, whereas video games are a huge body of IP that has been relatively unexploited,\u201d Stringfield said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to the wealth of characters and settings in the world of \u201cMario,\u201d Nintendo owns a multitude of other popular franchises such as \u201cMetroid\u201d and \u201cThe Legend of Zelda.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. The COVID-19 pandemic boosted the popularity of gaming IP<\/h2>\n

This is no surprise, but it\u2019s worth mentioning: The COVID-19-fueled bump in gaming activity has finally come to Hollywood. At the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, consumers\u2019 engagement with gaming content ballooned<\/a>, creating a new crop of gaming fans familiar with IPs such as \u201cMario\u201d and \u201cThe Last of Us.\u201d In 2021, 227 million Americans told the Entertainment Software Association<\/a> that they played video games, an increase from 214 million the previous year. The livestreaming platform Twitch saw a 67 percent increase in viewership<\/a> during the same period.<\/p>\n

Through adaptations such as the \u201cMario\u201d movie, the film industry is simply reacting to this uptick in interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

5. Gaming IPs come pre-loaded with vibrant and passionate fan communities<\/h2>\n

Video game adaptations are a cheat code for Hollywood film studios because, like comic books, their fandom doesn\u2019t need to be built from the ground up. For millions of \u201cMario\u201d fans, it was practically fait accompli that they would put their butts in movie theater seats for the release of the \u201cSuper Mario Bros. Movie,\u201d regardless of the quality of the film.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And in the long term, gaming IP may have more legs than comic book IP. Sales of print comics have been declining for years<\/a>, but interest in gaming is only growing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the budget of Hollywood projects ballooning, everyone is looking for bankable cultural properties to mitigate risk. Comics provided this, and now it\u2019s video games,\u201d said Jason Chung, director of esports and gaming at New York University. \u201cThe \u2018Mario\u2019 movie\u2019s success won\u2019t be a definitive jumping off point or end to video game IPs as movies. The only difference is that studios seem to finally be understanding that they need to give appropriate budgets and support to these films.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/digiday.com\/?p=499486<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Alexander Lee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The stunning success of the \u201cSuper Mario Bros. Movie\u201d shows that video game intellectual properties are ripe for film and television adaptation. If the last 10 years were the decade of superhero films and comic book adaptations, the next decade might very well become Hollywood\u2019s video game era.\u00a0\u201cSuper Mario\u201d \u2014\u00a0which was produced for roughly $100<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":629914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1277,1279,46],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-629913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gaming","8":"category-reasons","9":"category-technology"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}