We look at the past year of video game adaptations and why they’re so damn good.

Could the trend continue with future productions?

As a prime example, Nintendo and Illumination Studios' The Super Mario Bros. Movie hit theaters in April.

Would they be willing to watch Super Mario on the big screen?

It turns out, they absolutely would.

That’s a pretty dramatic change, compared to previous years.

As much as you might be nostalgic for Paul W.S.

Anderson’s Resident Evil films, they weren’t good.

Did fans not care about the source material or were they invested in this franchise’s separate narrative?

That all leads to 2023, where Super Mario Bros. kicked off a great year for video game movies.

“We definitely had a blockbuster approach to making this movie.

So we wanted to reflect that action sensibility.”

Is that why well-made video game adaptations are finally on the upswing?

The sights, sounds, and music cues all play a part in the experience.

That’s at least one area where the first live-action Mario movie failed with that level of detachment.

The series was a huge part of the pop cultural zeitgeist and hard to ignore.

You even had star Pedro Pascaldancing with clickers from the show on SNL commercials.

Look atFive Nights At Freddy’s.

Warner Bros. tried getting a movie going barely a year after the game’s initial release.

A Five Nights movie would eventually land at Blumhouse and hit theaters and Peacock in late October.

It wasn’t because of an unending devotion to the game’s canon.

It doesn’t disregard what fans know from the games, but remixed it to serve a new story.

Gran Turismo, based on the iconic racing video game series, took an entirely different route.

Yes, Easter eggs are important to an extent and there are plenty of them to behold.

Hopefully, though, those days are over.

There’s a level of reverence going into making really good video game movies that was missing before.

From there, who is to say what could be next?

Plus at least a few more Sonic the Hedgehog movies.

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