Even before Hollywood’s screenwriters went on strike, Tinseltown was desperate for new ideas. Having translated most popular comic book characters, and even niche superheroes, to the big screen multiple times through reboots and sequels, videogames have become the ‘new comics’ in Los Angeles.

Despite the majority of videogame translations tanking at the box office, including high-profile $70 million potential blockbusters like Doom and everything controversial independent filmmaker Uwe Boll has done (most recently the $60 million star-studded fantasy film In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale), Hollywood continues to license videogames in the hopes of capturing a global audience of gamers.

What Hollywood has been oblivious to over the years, perhaps focusing more on the few box office hits like Mortal Kombat, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Hitman and Silent Hill than the dozens of financial failures, is that gamers can be particularly demanding consumers. While it’s relatively easy to market even a bomb into an interesting premise through a 30-second trailer, gamers comb the web for every piece of information on new game releases. That’s the reason bad games don’t become blockbusters, but horrible movies do break $100 million at the box office.

“The competition for intellectual properties that have any sort of market recognition is clearly fierce,” says Scott Faye, producer of the Max Payne and Alice videogame adaptations. “If a game’s relatively successful, you know you can get the attention of that fanbase, and if you broaden the film you stand the chance of at least not failing relative to expectations and budget and many other things. Videogames have matured, and it’s an incredibly viable medium now for films. As games become more narrative and character-centric, there are fewer people in Hollywood studios that can look at a game and say: ‘Great, but where’s the movie?’”

Just as gaming has become a global business, topping $17.9 billion (£9 billion) in the US in 2007 and nearing $40 billion (£20 billion) worldwide, more Hollywood writers, directors, producers and studio executives who have grown up gaming have assumed positions of power. In addition to finding Hollywood more receptive to games as source material for film franchises, the belief goes that these producers are more endeared to these gaming properties and less likely to butcher them into plotless action fodder.

“There is nothing more boring than seeing a movie that is a straight adaptation of a videogame,” says Paul W S Anderson, who has had box-office success with Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil films. “A lot of hardcore gamers complain that videogame movies don’t stick exactly to the games, but frankly that would not be an enjoyable experience because if you’ve already played the game you know what’s going to happen.”

It also helps that Hollywood has a short memory when it comes to box-office duds like DOA, Doom and BloodRayne. “No disrespect to DOA, but for me DOA was not really a movie and it was only released on 500 theatres,” says Adrian Askerieh, producer of Hitman and the upcoming Spy Hunter and Kane & Lynch movies. “Doom had a damaging effect for a limited time two years ago, but movies like Hitman and Resident Evil Extinction are really helping more games head to the big screen. When you look at Prince Of Persia being made at Disney with Jerry Bruckheimer, I think we are absolutely in a new era for videogame movies. We’re entering that period of time like comic book movies did following the success of X-Men and Spider-Man, where AAA videogame movies are now being made.”

Stuart Beattie, who wrote the screenplay for New Line Cinema’s adaptation of Epic Games’ Gears Of War, believes it’s just a matter of time before a videogame movie hits the jackpot. The original Tomb Raider has come closest, so far. “Hollywood likes to do what’s proven,” explains Beattie. “They’ve already proved that books work, and plays can work, and recently that comic books can work. But they’ve yet to have a film be as successful as, say, Spider-Man, that’s based on a videogame. We had the same thing with Pirates Of The Caribbean. They didn’t want to base a film from a theme-park ride. But now that it’s done and it’s been successful they’re looking for what other theme-park rides could possibly work as films.”

Many eyes are looking at Prince Of Persia to serve as that potential blockbuster that will define videogame movies and catapult the genre into a legitimate contender. Jerry Bruckheimer, who’s not a gamer, went straight to the source after acquiring the rights to the franchise and teaming up with Disney to produce a trilogy of movies. He hired the creator of the game, Jordan Mechner, who had no previous background in writing movies, to tackle the script. Mechner paints a picture of Bruckheimer as a very hands-on producer who’s involved in every aspect of his films.

“Really, the process of making a videogame and making a movie are similar, although the scale of the movie is a lot bigger, in terms of the resources, the number of people, and the amount of money that gets spent,” says Mechner. “Still, both the movie and the videogame are team projects. They both use highly skilled, trained craftsmen and the success of a project really depends on everything coming together and firing on a lot of cylinders at once.”

Bruckheimer thinks that, whether a film is based on a videogame or theme park ride, “it’s always telling a great story and having great characters – it’s all the same. It’s all about creating interesting characters, a wonderful plot and story and engaging an audience. That’s the key to all of it.”

Much like the Pirates theme-park ride allowed Bruckheimer and his creators to run with new story ideas and develop a trilogy, many videogames offer that freedom to screenwriters and directors. Comic book scribe Grant Morrison, who wrote the script for Paramount Pictures’ Area 51 adaptation, enjoyed translating Midway’s sci-fi game to film.

“Videogame protagonists tend to be badass military cyphers, assassins and thugs; adapting them to the big screen can be more interesting to a writer than adapting someone else’s Spider-Man or Batman, where the heroes’ personalities are established,” says Morrison. “The videogame adaptation allows us [writers] to create new and more contemporary screen heroes for the 21st century while still enjoying the safety net of an established franchise.”

With Hollywood and game adaptations going strong in both directions, as more game studios license movies and TV shows for the same reason movie studios acquire videogame rights, the two forms of entertainment are inspiring one another.

“Films like 300 and Sin City are doing a really artistic approach to storytelling,” says Cos Lazauras, vice president of production at Halcyon Games, which is turning the new Terminator trilogy of films into games. “That becomes very inspirational to the gaming community, who for the most part are big movie fans, and that opens up all sorts of different ideas and concepts of the imagination in general. So I do think that the film space drives game design and concepts in games are inspiring Hollywood. Even when the two industries weren’t together and collaborating, they inadvertently were kind of driving each other without knowing it.”

That inspiration was evident to anyone who read reviews of 300 before it became an international sensation. Many movie critics, the majority of whom wouldn’t know a game controller from their elbow, complained that the film’s writer, director and producer Zack Snyder’s film looked like a videogame. But Snyder, who’s an avid gamer, realizes the vast differences between the two competing forms of entertainment.

“At first, people in Hollywood were like: ‘Games and movies are the same’,” he explains. “The gameplaying experience is different from a movie. Kids who play videogames like to watch movies. And people who watch movies like to play videogames, but they’re like lunch and dinner. They inform the other thing, but they don’t replace it. A game can be supplemental to a movie or vice versa, but the idea of recreating the gaming experience in a film doesn’t translate.”

With big-budget movies in the works based on everything from Max Payne to The Sims, Hollywood isn’t about to abandon the potential cash cow that games can provide. What remains to be seen is whether these new films will learn from the mistakes of the past.

Alice

Based on American McGee’s take on Alice In Wonderland, Sarah Michelle Gellar is no longer officially attached to this film, but Universal is.

Talent: Producer Scott Faye and director Marcus Nispel
Release: TBA
Prospects: The dark game found a niche PC audience, but Faye is refining the film’s script to appeal to a larger audience and feature a younger Alice.

Alone in the Dark II

Christian Slater, Tara Reid and Uwe Boll are removed from this direct-to-DVD sequel, although Boll produced. Writers/directors Michael Roesch and Peter Scheerer focus on a witch-hunt in this film, which will loosely tie in to the new Atari game.

Talent: Rick Yune, Lance Henriksen, Rachel Specter and Jason Connery
Release: May
Prospects: Boll films do well on DVD, which prompted this low-budget sequel’s greenlight. Skipping the cinema’s probably not a bad idea.

Area 51

Based on Midway’s sci-fi firstperson shooter franchise, Paramount Pictures has big plans for this action flick.

Talent: Comic book writer and artist Grant Morrison
Release: TBA
Prospects: Although the Blacksite: Area 51 game tanked, this film has Independence Day potential if done right.

BloodRayne III

With sales of the straight-to-DVD BloodRayne II: Deliverance still going strong, Uwe Boll plans a third and final movie set in World War II.

Talent: Boll will produce and direct, and says he’d like a new actress as Rayne
Release: 2009
Prospects: With each film in this trilogy taking on a different time period, this DVD should find its audience. It will also be interesting to see the film tie in to the original game.

Castlevania

After the success of Silent Hill, Konami’s bringing another key franchise to the big screen.

Talent: Paul W S Anderson is on board to write and produce
Release: 2009
Prospects: With the right talent this translation, which involves the Belmont clan and Dracula, should appeal to the massmarket, and has blockbuster franchise potential.

City Of Heroes

NCSoft has had great success with its City Of Heroes and City Of Villains franchise, and these videogame superheroes are now heading to the big screen.

Talent: Transformers producer Tom DeSanto plans a trilogy of films based on the hit superhero MMO.
Release: 2010
Prospects: Superheroes are hot in Hollywood and so are videogames, and this killer combo should have big names attached thanks to DeSanto’s backing.

Driver

After several failed starts, this film is currently in the garage for yet another script tune-up.

Talent: Impact Pictures’ Paul W S Anderson and Jeremy Bolt have been sitting behind the wheel of this franchise for a long time.
Release: TBA
Prospects: Depending on what happens with Vin Diesel’s The Wheelman, there’s potential for this adaptation, but Ubisoft will need to reinvigorate the game franchise as well.

EverQuest

Sony Pictures is exploring the big-screen potential for Sony Online Entertainment’s key
MMO franchise.

Talent: A big-name producer is developing this project, according to SOE president John Smedley
Release: TBA
Prospects: EverQuest has a loyal following of gamers around the globe and this fantasy MMO could become a Lord Of The Rings-type franchise for Sony Pictures.

Gears Of War

Epic Games has already topped Halo in the movie licensing game, as Gears Of War has a studio in New Line Cinema and a completed script.

Talent: Stuart Beattie (Pirates Of The Caribbean) delivered the script and a director is currently being sought.
Release: 2009
Prospects: With a Gears Of War game sequel expected this year, this franchise will only grow its international audience. The potential for a successful film franchise, buoyed by Beattie’s script, is strong with Epic’s property.

Getting Up

Although Marc Ecko’s game flopped, Paramount Pictures and MTV Films have optioned a film version focused on the graffiti action tale.

Talent: Writers Sean O’Keefe and Will Staples have completed the script about Trane’s adventures.
Release: TBA
Prospects: Marc Ecko has his non-gamer fashion following and MTV Films will be promoting this film to its young target demographic, which means the movie shouldn’t flop like the game.