Video game adaptations break records as former blockbuster ‘Marvel’ sinks into oblivion. There are good reasons for this, thinks MeinMMO editor-in-chief Leya Jankowski.
We gamers have known for a long time that video games are more than just wildly banging on a few keys. In the meantime, this has reached the mainstream, which was also recently ensured by strong film adaptations:
At Marvel, the headlines of the past few months read differently.
Since Avengers: Endgame (2019) there has been a downward trend at Marvel. Most recently, this was still evident in Ant-Man 3: Compared to the opening weekend, sales fell by 69.7 percent, which surpasses the previous negative record for Marvel films in this category.
But it’s not just Marvel’s heroes who are suffering at the box office. Black Adam and Shazam 2 were also disastrous losses for DC.
There is already talk of “superhero fatigue”, i.e. tiredness and oversaturation compared to the superhero genre.
If only it were that easy.
The third part of Guardians of the Galaxy showed that it is still possible to be successful with superheroes. My social media is awash with voices crying and laughing at the end of the Guardians trilogy, touched enough to want to shout it out to the world. The positive word of mouth is noticeable at the cinema box office.
The Guardians easily surpassed the previous Ant-Man film’s earnings in its second weekend while also posting a 49% decline in weekend sales, a particularly good result compared to other MCU films.
What can video game adaptations do that our superheroes often can’t?
Marvel is becoming increasingly pale and meaningless
In 2008, the Marvel Cinematic Universe made its debut with Tony Stark and Iron Man. The reviews are overwhelming: It is visually stunning, funny, action-packed, yet socially critical with characters that go to your heart.
Over the years, a vast universe develops that is divided into phases. Marvel stands out. The characters have deep backstories, there are big budgets, heavy use of computer generated imagery to bring the fantastic to the screen.
Stories for comic book nerds become bombastic films with heroes that every child should soon know – girls, boys and everyone in between alike. At some point, the term established itself around the successful “Marvel formula”:
Likeable heroes fight against villains who threaten the world or universe. In between there are plenty of jokes, maybe a heroic death and an impressive CGI fight scene. The day is saved.
At some point you feel like you’ve seen it all before. The Marvel formula that has been successful over the years is suddenly getting in its own way. Nothing surprises anymore.
Boredom spreads in the cinema. One superhero blockbuster after the other is pumped out. Despite high budgets, the CGI seems cheaper and cheaper. The sympathetic characters pale. There is no more drop height. Every significant death is undone by an item or by a parallel universe. Sacrifices become meaningless.
At some point it becomes more important which Easter egg is hidden in which film and who has a guest appearance somewhere. It gets exhausting to follow the whole story. The films and series relate to each other and if you don’t see everything you may miss something important to the new story.
All of this is tiring.
Video games are finally being taken seriously
Just like comic books, video games were only for nerds and basement kids. Nobody really took it seriously when a little plumber hops from lock to lock to free a princess from a turtle’s claws while diligently munching on mushrooms.
Video games have evolved over the years, long before the mainstream. While we cried with Ellie and Joel from The Last of Us on the PlayStation 3 10 years ago, a number of non-gamers caught up on Netflix in 2023. They, too, cried when confronted with a destroyed world in which there is still love and beauty.
Trailer for The Last of Us
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Before Arcane, there were few bright spots in video game film adaptations that lived up to their role models. Budgets were low, and with movies like Resident Evil, Mortal Combat, or the infamous first Super Mario Bros from 1989, it felt like nobody really cared about the games and the fans.
With Arcane comes the turning point. There have been good to great adaptations like Castlevania or Detective Pikachu before, but Arcane surprised and exceeded every expectation. The series has a fairly high production value, the story is told as dark and serious as in Game of Thrones. Characters are faced with difficult moral decisions that have consequences.
I’m convinced that the success of the new video game adaptations is based on this: They trust their audience again.
Now that the base material and its stories are finally being taken seriously by the film industry, the depth carries over into the films and series themselves. If someone dies, the character is allowed to stay dead so that death has meaning. It can be emotionally difficult for the story to do something to us and make a lasting impression on us.
Even in the childish Super Mario Bros, the decision was made to give Bowser as the villain already stalker macho traits – earning him criticism for being toxic turtle-like. But that’s an issue again, it’s courageous and sticks in your head.
The machinery of game adaptations has only just begun. Directly after the credits of the Mario film, it became clear that this was far from the end. A Zelda movie is more than likely. The Last of Us has already confirmed a sequel for HBO.
We’ll be hearing about a lot of records here, like Marvel once did.
I really hope Marvel gets their act together. Because even if I show great cynicism here, I love many characters from this universe and wish them a better future.
Director and producer James Gunn proved with his Guardians of the Galaxy that it’s not because of superhero fatigue.