10 Video Game Movies You Won't Believe Are In Development

It's no stretch to say that people usually play games for, well, the gameplay, and not the story. But this is a fact often missed by film studios when creating live-action adaptions of popular titles.

Historically, these films were critically panned, failing to understand what made the games popular, resulting in giving the concept a bad reputation.

The 1993 Super Mario Bros is perhaps the worst offender, alongside Uwe Boll’s numerous adaptations like Alone in the Dark or Far Cry.

Some end up spawning successful film franchises despite critical reception, and Resident Evil is the biggest live-action example, seeing 6 films released between 2002-2016. Even now, it's facing a reboot.

Meanwhile, the animated Pokémon series is due to see its 23rd entry later this year, and shows no intention of stopping.

However, it’s often the case that these adaptations remain in development hell or get outright cancelled. Live-action projects are especially susceptible to this, Metroid’s ill-fated adaptation by John Woo and Rogue Picture’s adaptation of Castlevania (unrelated to the Netflix series) being two notable cases.

This hasn’t stopped studios from commissioning further projects though, and recent films like Sonic the Hedgehog and Detective Pikachu have released to positive reception.

There are plenty more on the way too, and here are just some projects you likely didn't know were in production.

Dance Dance Revolution became a cultural phenomenon when it first launched in 1998. Part of Konami's Benami series, its use of dance mats for a controller and licensing of popular music was highly successful, spawning countless iterations across arcades, consoles and even mobile phone spin-offs.

The arcade entries have continued but home consoles have not seen a release since Hottest Party 5 on the Wii in 2011. Back in October 2018 however, it was revealed by Deadline that the film rights had been bought by Stampede Ventures, partnering with Branded Pictures Entertainment and Konami.

With no news since the initial reveal, it’s status is currently unknown but what we do know of the initial pitch is that it will “explore a world on the brink of destruction where the only hope is to unite through the universal language of dance”.

Just how the DDR format will translate remains unknown and it certainly feels like an unusual fit for the big-screen. But only time will tell how this unfolds.