Video games that made the leap to the big screen, from “Gran Turismo” to “Sonic”

The theatrical release of the film “Gran Turismo” on Thursday, August 24, 2023, is the latest example of the many big-screen adaptations of popular video games, from the recent “Super Mario” to “Tomb Raider” or “Final Fantasy”.

The film is inspired by the true story of Jann Mardenboroughthe teenager who went from playing this video game that simulates driving a car to starting his career as a racing driver after a competition organized by nissan and PlayStation.

Among its cast, the participation of david harbor (“Stranger Things”), Orlando Bloom (“Pirates of the Caribbean”), Archie Madekwe (“Midsummer”) and Geri Halliwell, Former member of the Spice Girls.

These are several of those movies that were born from a popular video game:

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

After the ill-fated version with actors from 1993, this new animated adaptation of the adventures of Super Mario and Luigi was released on April 5, 2023 with great success: its grossing over $1.3 billion made it the highest-grossing film in the video game saga, in part by remaining faithful to the aesthetics and narrative followed on the console.

tomb Raider

The movie duo Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life” (2003) forever linked the adventurous character of Lara Croft to the performance of Angelina Jolie. The 2018 adaptation, in which the heroine was played by Alice Vikander and which was to repeat in a sequel in 2021, was canceled indefinitely due to the pandemic.

Street Fighter

The classic Japanese fighting game that revolutionized arcade machines at the end of the eighties had numerous translations to the big screen, including an anime version. Among all of them, “Street Fighter” (1994), with a cast led by Jean Claude Van Damme and the late Puerto Rican actor Raul Juliaa film that puts its plot at the service of violence and special effects and is a cult object by lovers of video games and crazy low-budget movies.

Uncharted

Released in 2022, the first adaptation of the saga was one of the most anticipated and garnered a premiere ranked among the best in this genre: the presence of Tom Holland as treasure hunter Nathan Drake in a cast that also includes Antonio Banderas aroused the interest of an audience that predicts the arrival of a sequel.

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu

Although the saga of training and fighting between fantastic creatures is a veteran in the field of adaptations (the original 1996 video game had its own anime series the following year), the announcement of a film in which ryan reynolds gave voice to the legendary pokémon Pikachu was received with reluctance by the public. Even so, the film surprised and achieved a box office that exceeded $400 million.

sonic the hedgehog

After the premiere of dozens of television series and telefilms inspired by the popular platform game, the leap of the blue hedgehog to celluloid occurred in 2020 with a film that mixed the actors with 3D animations of the protagonist, facing his quintessential enemy. , Dr. Robotnik, incarnated by Jim Carrey. The project started off on the wrong foot, highly criticized in its first screenings to fans, but in the end it was a success that led to a second part, released in 2022, and a third has already been confirmed.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

If there is a title adored in the world of videogames it is “Final Fantasy”, which since 1996 has already had 16 installments. The most notable adaptation is that of 2001, “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within”, an animated film that was a blockbuster with a tremendous budget for the time, $138 million, and yet it was a huge box office flop that forced even the closure of the production company