Jack Black is currently making a play to become king of the nerds. For years, he was known as an actor in movies like School of Rock and King Kong, as well as for being the frontman of the band Tenacious D. More recently he appeared in the latest episode of The Mandalorian, branched out to YouTube to start his own gaming channel Jablinski Games, and is now playing none other than Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which opens this weekend and seems destined to become the most successful video game movie of all time.
We’re kind of in a bumper era for video game adaptations. HBO’s The Last of Us show, adapted from Naughty Dog’s video game of the same name, wrapped up its first season just the other month, with at least two more on the way. The show was beloved by both critics and audiences, reversing some prejudices about video game adaptations being inherently sucky. Clearly, you can do it right if you put your mind to it.
Where might we go from here? Jack Black has some ideas. “I’m a fan of adaptations, when done right. The Last of Us was fantastic,” he told the BBC. “And what’s crazy is how loyal it is to the original source material. It’s basically all from the game with just a couple of tweaks. It’s going to win all the awards.”
"They used the video game almost like a storyboard and I was like, “Whoa, this looks just the same.” And there are some great games that have yet to be explored in television or film. Maybe there’s going to be a Red Dead Redemption movie? There should be, because I think that [has] just as good or [an] even better story than The Last of Us."
Better than The Last of Us? Them’s fighting words. But the exciting thing about The Last of Us is that it set a new quality benchmark for video game adaptations that future shows and movies will have to try and hit. There’s no more resting on, “well, it’s good for a video game movie.” We know they can be genuinely great now, so future adaptations need to aim higher.
Could Red Dead Redemption become the next great video game adaptation after The Last of Us
There are two Red Dead Redemption games out there: the first came out in 2010 and the second in 2018. They’re open world westerns, and like The Last of Us, they have been rapturously praised for their stories, particularly the second game. It’s easy to see how they would make a good TV show, but we don’t know if developer Rockstar has any designs to that effect.
But I wouldn’t be shocked if there were. Off the top of my head, right now there are TV shows in development based on God of War, Tomb Raider, Fallout, Gears of War, and I’m sure more I’m forgetting, not to mention shows that have already found success like Arcane, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and even The Witcher, although that one’s in a gray area because both the game series and TV show are technically based on books.
The point is that video game adaptations are everywhere nowadays and we shouldn’t expect the trend to slow down anytime soon. The Super Mario Bros. Movie opens today!
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h/t ScreenRant