Videogame adaptations for both the big and small screen have had a long and notorious reputation for being not particularly good. Starting with 1993's live-action Super Mario Bros. movie — a borderline fever dream that starred Bob Hoskins (!) as Mario and Dennis Hopper (!!) as human version of Bowser — it's been one letdown after another where disaster was the norm and occasional mediocrity felt like a raging success. The failures pile up like bullet casings in a Call of Duty match. Remember that boneheaded Doom movie with a young Dwayne Johnson? Or how about the big-screen Prince of Persia starring Jake Gyllenhaal as (checks notes) a Middle Eastern thief and adventurer? Hitman was made twice as a film, and neither found an audience. There are three Tomb Raider movies, and people maybe kind of liked the one of them? There was Double Dragon and Assassin's Creed and Rampage, and none of them are remembered very fondly today.
Occasionally, we'd get a game adaptation that was okay! The two recent Sonic the Hedgehog films have pleased fans of that series. Netflix has found some success taking videogame properties and turning them into animated shows, as proved by Castlevania and Arcane: League of Legends. Just this month they tried again with Dragon Age: Absolution. And Paul W. S. Anderon's six-film Resident Evil series had its B-movie charms. (It was, of course, then followed by both a Resident Evil reboot show and movie, both of which were completely dismissed.) But despite the occasional moderate success, there's no game adaptation that has really proved that Hollywood can take a property that's beloved by gamers and turn into a mass-appeal, water-cooler smash. Well, if it's ever going to happen, 2023 should be the year that it does.
'The Last of Us' Looks to Bring the Game's Emotional Story to Live-Action Life
There are three major videogame adaptations barreling down on us like, uhhh, literal barrels in a Donkey Kong level. (I figure I might as well see how many videogame analogies I can jam into this article.) First up is The Last of Us, HBO's TV adaptation of the popular horror games from Sony and their well-regarded game development studio, Naughty Dog. Telling the story of two lost souls -- middle-aged Joel (Pedro Pascal) and teenager Ellie (Bella Ramsey) -- who develop an adoptive father-and-daughter bond in the middle of a raging zombie apocalypse, The Last of Us is renowned not just for its gameplay, but for its sharply drawn characters and the epic, United States-spanning journey it takes them on. One cry you'll often hear from gamers when bemoaning the lack of good videogame adaptations is: "Just do a straight adaptation already!" Because narrative storytelling you merely watch is admittedly different from immersive storytelling you affect through gameplay, filmmakers working on an adaptation will often try to take the game's components and rearrange them to fit a new medium. That's fine to some extent, but too often (by which I mean, all the damn time) this results in the movie or show being too far removed from what people loved about the game in the first place.
This does not look like it's going to be a problem with The Last of Us, which, based on its recent trailer, is keeping most if not all the game's story and crucial elements intact. The last Naughty Dog game that got turned into a film — 2022's Uncharted — felt like a massive downgrade from its source material, so it's heartening to see it doesn't appear the same mistakes will be made twice. There's a good chance The Last of Us will appeal to non-gamers as well, considering its strong cast, fresh take on the always popular zombie genre, and talented behind-the-scenes crew, which includes showrunner Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and composer Gustavo Santaolalla (who also did the incredible music for the games). It seems likely The Last of Us will become HBO's next Sunday night sensation.
It's-a-Me, Mario!
On the other end of the spectrum is The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which is tonally about as far from The Last of Us as you can get. But they do have one more thing in common: They both have a chance to blow up in a way no game adaptation ever has before. In fact, this new animated Super Mario Bros. may be more primed to shatter the ceiling on how successful a videogame adaptation can be. Consider the facts: One, it's being made by Illumination, which has proven time and time again that it can drive families to movies theaters in droves. (The studio's Despicable Me/Minions franchise is responsible for over $4 billion in ticket sales alone.) Two, Mario is about as universally beloved as a videogame character can get. Pretty much every human being under the age of 50 who at some point had access to a working television and a Nintendo console has some sort of nostalgic attachment to the character.
And with Nintendo providing a film guiding hand here, Super Mario Bros., just like The Last of Us, looks respectful of the source material, offering up a familiar colorful world and iconic theme music that will immediately make you feel like you are 13-years-old and sitting in front of your parents' television again. If movies do anything these days it's capitalize on nostalgia. Honestly? I wouldn't be shocked if The Super Mario Bros. Movie ends up being 2023's highest-grossing film. It'll at least be in the race, and no amount of bellyaching about Chris Pratt voicing Mario is going to change that.
If 'Fallout' Releases in 2023, It Could Be Huge, Too
While The Last of Us and The Super Mario Bros. Movie are clearly the big guns when it comes to 2023 videogame adaptations, there's also a dark-horse third contender for the game-to-screen crown that should debut sometime next year. Amazon has been quietly working on its TV adaptation of Fallout, Bethesda Game Studios' series that's set in an alternative version of the United States where the style and technology of the 1940s and 1950s continued to dominate the culture well into the future when a nuclear war pretty much blows the whole world to smithereens. Left standing are mutated humans and animals, killer robots, and those few regular people who were lucky enough to escape to one of the country's protected fallout shelters when the bombs dropped. (Think Mad Max meets The Jetsons, and you're on the right track.)
While The Last of Us games are largely story-based and Mario has never strayed too far from its psychedelic-yet-kid-friendly platforming, Fallout offers up an entire world just ripe to be explored in a scripted, live-action format. Alternate-history shows ranging from The Man in the High Castle to For All Mankind to Watchmen have done well on TV recently, and Fallout's mix of science-fiction, horror, history, and adventure could make it one of the year's biggest genre hits. That's assuming it releases in 2023. Amazon has yet to confirm a premiere date, but the show started filming last summer and all signs have pointed to an Amazon Prime debut sometime next year. Westworld co-creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan are in charge of bringing the game to life, and Bethesda creative director Todd Howard is among the producers, hopefully helping to ensure the show will stay true to the source material (a running theme in this article).
Who knows which of these three game adaptations will ignite the pop-culture universe like Link setting torches ablaze in some dark Legend of Zelda dungeon? (Sorry, had to fit in one more.) Maybe all three of them will become massive hits in their respective mediums and formats. Regardless, for gamers who want to see more of their beloved games turned into movies and TV shows, 2023 will offer the best shot to prove that videogame adaptations can both please their core fans and cross over to mainstream audiences in a way they've never been able to before.