There are at least six Sega movie projects in the works (Sega/Metro)
Films based on Sega Mega Drive classics like Streets Of Rage and Shinobi could be the best news retro gaming fans have had in decades.
Video game movies are nothing new, but the idea that they could actually be good is. Thanks to box office success stories like The Super Mario Bros Movie and Uncharted (not to mention The Last Of Us and Fallout on TV), game companies are more eager than ever to partner with Hollywood and leverage their IPs as a means of boosting sales and making some extra money.
It’s a perfectly fine strategy and audiences have often enjoyed seeing their favourite games turned into genuinely good films. The days of video game movies being universally embarrassing seem to be over, even if Borderlands makes clear they’re not gone forever.
The success stories appear to have emboldened game companies into rummaging down the sofa in search of anything they can mould into a potential blockbuster, regardless of whether it makes any sense to. Sega, in particular, is going overboard with its movie projects at the moment, even though very few of its classic properties have a coherent story.
What Sega movies are coming out soon?
Currently riding high with its live action Sonic The Hedgehog movies (with a third due in December), Sega has plans for no less than six movie adaptations in the near future. Not for any of its current titles, but for long-dormant IPs from the 90s: Streets Of Rage, The House Of The Dead, Space Channel 5, Shinobi, Comix Zone, and Eternal Champions.
At the risk of sounding mean, who is talking about Comix Zone or Eternal Champions nowadays? Even Space Channel 5, arguably the most famous of those six, isn’t all that relevant in the 2020s, with Ulala’s role as the face of Sega rhythm games taken over by virtual pop star Hatsune Miku.
We’d be remiss not to acknowledge the 2020s have seen a Streets Of Rage revival in Streets Of Rage 4 and a House Of The Dead remake. But the former, while successful, has hardly turned Streets Of Rage into a household name and the latter simply wasn’t very good.
No doubt Sega intends to capitalise on its big retro video game revivals. At The Game Awards 2023, Sega teased new entries for a range of once-forgotten franchises. However, only two of those – Streets Of Rage and Shinobi – are confirmed to be getting movies.
So far, Sega has no plans to make a Comix Zone sequel or remake Eternal Champions (an obscure Mega Drive fighting game that few people liked even at the time), so there’s not even any cross-promotions to fully take advantage of with a movie.
Are you excited about all these Sega movies? (Picture: Sega)
It all seems very random and risky when you remember these old IPs don’t exactly offer much of a story framework for a film. The 80s and 90s were a time when stories weren’t at the forefront for a lot of games (barring exceptions like Final Fantasy) and were simply excuses to justify why you’re running through levels.
Sega does at least seem aware of this. In this VGC interview, the company’s global head of transmedia, Justin Scarpone (who was an executive at Disney for 17 years), acknowledges the challenges the company faces in marketing these movie projects to both nostalgic fans and the younger generation.
‘If we try to reinvent these IPs, how do we connect?,’ he said. ‘Which platforms and how do we evolve the lure for these IPs that are lesser known, frankly speaking? And how do we connect with new generations?’’
The answer seems to be by telling a good enough story, with Scarpone using Shinobi as an example of a game that’s extremely light on lore and characterisation.
‘There are some episodic or, let’s say, iconic moments in the old franchise games that we can call out in the movie script or in the reboot of the game. But I think we have to do a lot more because games in 2025 or 2026, the level of storytelling and gameplay has just obviously evolved tremendously. If we’re too careful, I think we’ll under-deliver, creatively speaking.’
Why are so many video game movies bad?
On one hand, something like Shinobi offers a degree of freedom when it comes to narrative. Its original story and protagonist, Joe Musashi, are so ill-defined that they can be fleshed out without contradicting anything.
However, this lack of narrative also means players all have their own preconceptions of the tone of the game and Joe as a character. Unlike Sonic or Kazuma Kiryu, there’s no agreed foundation to draw on, meaning any personality Joe gets, or story he’s given, can easily anger certain purists for contradicting the Shinobi that exists in their heads.
Of course, movie adaptations not being true to their source material is hardly anything new, for video games or anything else, but it’s interesting that despite being a critical and commercial flop, 2K claims that the Borderlands movie still caused an increase in game sales – even though there hadn’t been a new one out in years.
This explains why video game movies almost never have an official tie-in, as publishers merely license out the property but don’t put their money or reputation on the line, in the event that it’s a flop or a laughing stock (or both, in the case of Borderlands).
But Sega’s situation is different. People are still playing Borderlands games and Borderlands 4 was recently announced. Nobody has thought about Eternal Champions and the rest in 30 years, so unless the movie is a massive hit Sega get nothing out of the deal except the initial licensing fee.
What retro games is Sega going to reboot?
There’s a very good chance that, on some level at least, Sega is simply taking Hollywood investors’ money and not asking any questions, since video game movies are hot at the moment and movie execs are clearly looking to sign up whatever they can get their hands on. After all, a Space Channel 5 movie doesn’t make any less sense than Pac-Man, Days Gone, Bendy And The Ink Machine, or Just Dance.
But if Sega want any long-term benefit out of the deal the sensible thing would be to make new games based on these franchises, which would not only rejuvenate their back catalogue – which has laid dormant for more than 20 years now – but also create new story elements for the movies to adapt.
The original Shinobi didn’t have a memorable story but the new one could be different. However, even then it’s difficult to understand why games as unloved and unremarkable as Comix Zone and Eternal Champions are being fast-tracked ahead of Sega games like Phantasy Star and Panzer Dragoon, which already have a story and remain popular today.
Hollywood clearly has it in mind that where superheroes dominated cinema in the 2010s, video games can do so in the 2020s and beyond but comic books are a storytelling medium and, in general, 90s and early 2000s video games were not.
The best-case scenario for this problem is for publishers to revive their older games with modern storytelling techniques and get them ready for adaptation that way. The worst-case scenario is that the eventual Eternal Champions movie is an authentic adaptation of the original game and ends up making Borderlands look like a cinematic classic.
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