Back in the mid-’90s, thanks to Mortal Kombat being a surprisingly decent and fun movie, there was a rash of video game movies. And there’s a reason we’re calling it a rash; it’s a little amazing Double Dragon didn’t have mobs of angry filmgoers torching Electronics Boutiques and Babbages in malls across the country. Seriously, just try to watch the trailer and not want to, at the very least, punch the music supervisor. As a result, game companies have been gun-shy about going Hollywood, but Sega, at least, is going to make another go of it.
Variety is reporting Sega is gearing up to bring its games to various screens as long, non-interactive, live-action cutscenes. Among the properties on the table are Streets Of Rage, Sega’s side-scrolling brawler and hate crime simulator; Shinobi, Sega’s ninja franchise in which the girl is hard to get; Crazy Taxi, which is self-explanatory; and Rise of Nightmares, which was a gimmicky Kinect game that either is way more popular than it seems or Sega thinks it’s got another Ouija on their hands.
Sorry, Eternal Champions and Toejam and Earl fans, you’ll just have to wait. As for the success of this particular venture, a lot depends on who they hire. Truthfully, most of these games don’t have much in the way of story, and that can be a good thing or a bad thing. That said, we’re also not sure how these movies are getting paid for, so that might be a factor as well. Often, who pays for it makes the difference between a silver screen debut and stumbling across it on Netflix, so once we know where the money is coming from, that will tell us where it’s going.