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Video game movies certainly have a mixed reputation among critics and audiences. While there have been successful film franchises like Resident Evil, many were unhappy with how far they strayed from the game, with many movie adaptations disappointing fans. With popular titles like Warcraft, Doom, Hitman, and Prince of Persia failing to capture the magic of the games and becoming critical and box office disappointments, the video game genre is filled with more failures than successes.
However, the tide has started to turn, with the box office hits of the two Sonic the Hedgehog films and Uncharted. Video game adaptations have also exploded on television with streaming series like Cuphead and Halo, with more like Fallout and The Last of Us on the way. It is possible that video game adaptations might have finally found their groove.
For all the video game movies that did happen, there are plenty that never saw the light of day. Many of these had talented directors, writers, and actors attached that could have shifted the perspective of video game movies much earlier. In fact, there were likely some potentially massive movie franchises that never came into existence due to various studio concerns. What did audiences miss out on? These are some of the most high-profile video game movies that never happened but wished could have been made.
Gore Verbinski’s BioShock
When BioShock was released in August 2007, it received universal acclaim; the game’s aesthetics and visuals seemed like they were just begging for a big-screen film treatment. In May 2008, hot off directing the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Gore Verbinski signed on to direct a film version of BioShock with a screenplay by Sweeney Todd, Gladiator, and The Aviator screenwriter John Logan. The movie was set up at Universal Pictures and the plan was to make an R-rated film and aim for a 2010 release date.
However, in 2009 after Watchmen failed at the box office, Universal Pictures got nervous about investing $200 million dollars into an R-rated film. Universal Pictures asked Verbinski to either tone the film down to a PG-13 rating to get the budget he requested, or to make it R-rated but with an $80 million budget. Verbinski refused both offers and walked away from the project, even though they were only about eight weeks away from filming and had drawn up concept art and done screen tests. While other directors attempted to get the project off the ground, the film eventually fizzled out.
While a BioShock movie is in development at Netflix, one wonders how different the video game movie landscape might have looked had Verbinski, using his clout off the massive worldwide box office hits of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, gotten to bring his epic BioShock film to the big screen.
Richard Donner’s Crazy Taxi
Anyone who has stepped into an arcade has likely played or at least seen Crazy Taxi. The game series revolves around the player assuming the job of a taxi driver trying to get customers to their destinations as quickly as possible while performing impressive crazy feats for extra tips. The game is notable for its use of music by The Offspring and Bad Religion, anticipating the kind of massive soundtracks of games like Grand Theft Auto. It is one of the most iconic video games and one that has an easy premise to sell an audience on.
In 2001, the late great Richard Donner signed on to direct a Crazy Taxi movie, seeing the potential for a summer blockbuster. With a filmography that included Superman: The Movie, Goonies, and all four Lethal Weapon films, Donner seemed like an incredible land for this video game movie. However, delays in trying to crack the script and find the right story eventually led to the film rights lapsing and since then no attempt at making this iconic game into a film has been made.
This is a shame because Donner was right, Crazy Taxi does have the potential to be a big summer film. With the rise in ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft, and the taxi companies taking major hits, there’s certainly room for a story about a cab company on their last leg trying to compete with a changing market.
John Woo’s Metroid
John Woo is one of the greatest action directors in the world, having helmed the Hong Kong action masterpieces The Killer and Hard Boiled and American action films like Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2. Woo is known for his kinetic action and frequent slow-motion shots and is a pioneer in the action subgenre gun fu. He seems like a perfect fit for an action video game adaptation, and he came close with Nintendo’s Metroid.
The first Metroid game was released in 1986 and the franchise has become one of Nintendo’s signature titles, with the lead character Samus Aran breaking out with mainstream audiences due to her appearances in her own titles and provenance in the Super Smash Bros. series. The story of an intergalactic bounty hunter is an easy pitch for a movie. In 2004, shortly after the release of Metroid Prime for the Nintendo GameCube, Woo entered talks about directing Metroid. The film was aiming for a 2006 release date and the plan was to explore Samus’ backstory before she became a bounty hunter.
Following the disastrous results of 1993 Super Mario Bros., Nintendo was very protective of their characters and was reportedly not very open to collaboration or making changes for the adaptation. By 2007, everyone departed the project. It would be another 12 years until Nintendo made a live-action film of one of their properties, with Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. Now though, Nintendo seems more open to the idea of making movies, as they have partnered with Universal Pictures to create an animated Mario movie, and hopefully more titles are on the way. Yet it would have been something to see a Metroid movie directed by one of the greatest action filmmakers of all time in 2006.
Tom Hardy’s Splinter Cell
Splinter Cell has been a popular series of video games since it was first published in 2002. The franchise, endorsed by Tom Clancy, follows NSA black ops agent Sam Fisher. As of this writing, there are seven games and eight tie-in novels. With how well different Tom Clancy titles have done on films like the Jack Ryan series, Splinter Cell naturally lends itself to a feature film. In 2011, Ubisoft announced that they were developing films based on Splinter Cell, Tom Clancy’s: Ghost Recon, and Assassin’s Creed. In November 2012, Tom Hardy, having made a household name for himself in films like Inception and The Dark Knight Rises, was cast in the lead role of Sam Fischer.
In 2013, New Regency was set to make the film. In 2014, The Bourne Identity director Doug Liman signed on to helm the movie with a script by Up in the Air screenwriter Sheldon Turner. However, by 2015, Liman departed the project and as of 2017, no update has been made regarding the film. The critical and box office disappointment of Assassin’s Creed might have hurt Splinter Cell, and star Tom Hardy has grown busy with other titles. Yet this seems like an action film franchise that could run for years and create a fun, exciting new spy series.
Neill Blomkamp’s Halo
Halo is one of the biggest video game series of the 21st century, and with how popular the games were it seemed like a no-brainer a movie would be on the way. The development of a film started in 2005, a year after Halo 2 was released. The film was set to be a collaboration between 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures in order to cover the movie’s massive budget, and an all-star team was quickly assembled.
28 Days Later screenwriter (and Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Men director) Alex Garland penned the script, and Peter Jackson signed on as an executive producer. Guillermo Del Toro was initially approached, and Neill Blomkamp was set to direct Halo, which would have made it his feature film debut after Jackson was impressed with his short film Alive in Joburg (which became the basis for District 9 after Halo fell apart).
Pre-production on the film was halted several times and 20th Century Fox eventually threatened to pull out of the project. Talks between Microsoft, Peter Jackson, and Universal Pictures eventually fell apart, and the movie was canceled in late 2007, shortly around the release of Halo 3. While Halo finally found its way to live-action in the form of the Paramount+ television series 15 years later, the project feels like too little too late and has the limitations of a television show instead of feeling like the epic sci-fi film it could have been from the director of District 9 and the Lord of the Rings producer Peter Jackson.
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