8 Cancelled Video Game Movies That Would Have Changed Everything
It's a shame Hollywood pressed reset on this bunch.
There will be a lot riding on Alicia Vikander's shoulders when Tomb Raider plunders its way into cinemas next year with decades of bad video game adaptations behind it.
There are good reasons why movies based on console titles come with a stigma attached and Lara Croft is the latest icon of the medium to try and challenge the world's preconceptions about such projects.
The road from home computing to the big screen is paved with cowpats. Regardless of whether the film is question is based on a game as simple as Double Dragon, or as sophisticated as World of Warcraft, they always seem to underwhelm for one reason or another, some more spectacularly than others.
Super Mario Bros became the first mainstream blockbuster based on a video game when it arrived in cinemas in 1993, bearing little resemblance to any of the plumber's platform outings, and it's been mostly downhill from there, the cheap, schlocky thrills of the Resident Evil sequels notwithstanding.
The video game adaptation is waiting for that one film to come along and finally get it right. That could change everything, and it might have already happened if one of these had actually made it in front of the cameras...
8. BioShock
It's easy to see why Universal thought BioShock would make a great movie. With its layered plot, striking visuals and underwater dystopian setting, it would have been quiet the spectacle on the big screen.
The studio enlisted the services of Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski to bring the world of Rapture to Hollywood, a feat he aimed to pull off with the help of rich CGI environments and a hard R rating.
Verbinski's BioShock would have challenged several preconceptions about video game adaptations with its mature themes, intellectual subject matter and stylish visuals - providing the CG was up to scratch - but it wasn't to be.
The project stalled when Universal expressed concerns about its budget. The studio's top brass were reluctant to throw big bucks behind an R-rated video game adaptation, believing it was too big of a risk.
Verbinski later dropped out of the director's chair and was replaced by 28 Weeks Later filmmaker Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, with a view to staying on as producer, but it wasn't long before the movie sunk into the depths.
Universal has long since washed its hands of the adaptation, and although this version of the project is dead, Verbinski said during a recent Reddit AmA session that the success of the R-rated Deadpool would have made his original BioShock vision possible to achieve today.