The Problem With Video Game Movies

“Chicken Jockey!” The whole theater erupted in screams. A shower of overpriced popcorn and fountain drinks spewed over every moviegoer.

As crazy as it may sound, this was the norm if you wanted to see The Minecraft Movie in April of 2025.  Every fan of the famous blocky game flocked to theaters to view what would be yet another addition to Hollywood’s long catalog of video game-based movies. Although it may seem like a good thing, that the movie industry is expanding to other audiences, that's still far from the facts.

In my opinion, the whole purpose of Hollywood nowadays isn't to show creativity or to highlight movies in an artistic light. It's to see just how much money they can squeeze out of every aspect of culture. Gaming happens to be a big contender of this topic. The first movie created based on a familiar video game was Super Mario Bros in 1993. The movie was live action and had a large budget, but flopped due to the fact that nobody wanted to see a realistic Goomba (look it up).

In general, video game movies don’t become major blockbusters. Why is that? I believe it’s partly due to the fact of Hollywood not knowing when to stop as things start to crumble. They just keep punching away at a story until they find success. In this case, success would be showcased in The Minecraft Movie and The Super Mario Bros Movie. Hollywood has deviated from its rich history of artistry and creativity to instead make useless moneygrabs of beloved topics and parts of culture. This is all a result of feeding their greed, and video game-based movies fit right into these schemes.