Why video games don't make good movies

Need for Speed seemed poised to become the video game movie to break the mold.

Based on a game that sold more than 140 million units, the commercial potential was clear. It starred the Emmy-winning Aaron Paul, coming off the final season of TV's Breaking Bad, giving critics hope it would be the first game adaptation worth watching.

But the $66 million Disney street racing film, which included a Super Bowl ad, stalled its first weekend out. Speed opened in third place, well behind Mr. Peabody & Sherman and 300: Rise of An Empire, films in their second week of release.

Critics pummeled the film, which has sputtered to $40 million as it plummets from the top 10 (though it is an international hit, collecting a healthy $143 million).

The hasty departure has observers debating: will we ever see a video-game adaptation that marries commercial and artistic appeal?

Comic-book movies have made the leap, as films such as The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier manage to score critical laurels and box-office millions.

Video game movies have the second part down. The Lara Croft franchise has spawned two popular Angelina Jolie thrillers, while Resident Evil has seen five films generate $244 million.

But in terms of critical merit, it's been game over. Even 2001's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time at $131 million, gets a thumbs-up from less than half of moviegoers, according to pollsters at movie websiteRotten Tomatoes.

That won't stop a screenful of upcoming video adaptations:

To succeed beyond profits, experts say, Hollywood may have to treat movies based on games differently from other properties.

"They're completely different animals," says Kirk Kjeldsen, assistant professor in the Cinema Department of the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Va.

He says that while Hollywood films are traditionally based on three acts, video games play out in much a different form. "Translating a non-linear narrative into a linear three-act structure is like making a song out of a painting or a sculpture."

If any film came close to impressing critics, Kjeldsen says, it was 2010's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, a Jake Gyllenhaal adaptation that did $90 million and earned praise from about a third of critics.

"That's probably the best way to go with a video game adaptation — take the best parts of the game, discard the rest," Kjeldsen says.

But those parts, says Wheeler Winston Dixon, a professor of film studies at theUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln, are often what separate a video game from a film — and make the union so difficult.

"There's a very simple reason that nearly all video game movies fail; they're not interactive," Dixon says.

"With video games, the player is really the star of the movie, directing the actors, deciding what plotline to follow — and most importantly for most games, whom to shoot down to get to the next level. When this aspect of the game is missing, viewers no longer feel like part of the action."

Dixon says the day "may soon come when video games are played by audiences in movie theaters. But until that time, movies will never be able to replicate the gaming experience."

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Need for SpeedAaron PaulBreaking Badvideo games to moviesbox office