FF:WA Movies based on Computer games

Being a geek I get into real strange conversations with other geeks, nerds and Dweebs.

I need help, not just with this, but with some info.

I was discussing with some friends computer games and movies - Who wouldnt after seeing DOOM (Yes it's Tuesday BWA BEA BWA HA HA HA)

We were discussing what was the first movie based on a computer game, After a few minutes of reflection on Tomb Raider (Giant Robots!!! get your mind out of the gutter) the earliest we could come up with was Wing Commander. We Decided TRON did not cout as it used games as part of the plot, not the setting for the plot.

Does anyone know of earlier ones?

Not That I mean to be a lurker, but I am short of time in my life

Didn't they do a Super Mario movie(s)?
Does this count? I know it's not COMPUTER games but you know

If your including console games then I think Super Mario might have been the first.

Super Mario was released in 1993 and Wing Commander not until 1999 (I thought it was much earlier than that though)

The first one was cloak and dagger wasn't it??? although cloak and dagger was a comic first.

if not it would be Mario Bros with Bob Hoskins and John Leguiziamo, and then possibly Mortal Kombat???

There were a few around that era, early 90's. Mario Bros, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Double Dragon. I'll use the trusted IMDB to discover the answer for you, oh mighty error

I've never heard of cloak and dagger, so you could be right Johnnage.

well it was a comic turned game turned movie.

I thought the cloak and dagger game was made for the movie and not the other way around. The whole plot of the movie revolved around some secret plans being hidden in the code of a computer game.
I can't think of any movies based on games that I would consider to be good movies. Tomb Raider was ok as far as action films go but not great. Most tend to be utter crap so I don't have high hopes for the likes of Halo and Doom. I think they're trying to drum up interest in Halo by plastering Peter Jackson's name all over it even though his involvement in it will be minimal.

resident evil was a good zombie movie, but saying that zombie movies generally have little substance, and only homages to romero.

And Mortal Kombat was pretty throw away, but entertained me at the time.

Come to think of it- AVP i suppose is a movie based on a comic turned game inspired by two different franchises!!!!!

WOWZER!

I don't know which was the first, but I'm loving the trailer for DOOM at the moment. I love how 1st person shooter a lot of it looks, exactly how the game looked.

Oh, and I loved Super Mario Bros.

C'mon, it's the Rock. He's funny as hell no matter what movie he does.

I have a soft spot for Mortal Kombat...mostly because of Christopher Lambert as yet another lightning-throwing immortal.

Have to agree there. I loved the Mortal Combat arcade game too (the first one anyway - never really tried the others). Wing commander was without a doubt the most disappointing. One of my all time favourite PC games and the game itself had a far better cast and script than the movie.

Thankyou F_A! I thought I was the only looney raving about the 1st peson camera angles in the DOOM trailer!!!!

Plus Karl Urban is gonna be cool. He was cool in chronicles of Riddick.

( I think I'm the only person who loved that movie- and Pitch Plack and Dark Fury!)

Not too sure on Doom yet. The 1st person shots in the trailer did take me by surprise. Here's hoping it doesn't suck too much.

I loved the Mario Bros movie too! I didn't care that it wasn't like the games, hell only an animated movie could be as crazy as the original NES games anyway. It was fun. Just wish I could find a DVD copy somewhere.

Oh, I didn't like Riddick, but I do like Pitch Black.

I don't see why everyone hated it. I mean- Vin Diesel is a knob, but Crematoria and the Bounty Hunters, the necromonger empire designs were amazing, awesome sets. Seeing New Mecca and the Holy Man again- seeing "Jack" grown up and all insane.

And the ending was so incredible. Riddick becoming leader of the huge evil empire, and not being too happy about it!

The effects were pretty cool and the prisons were just like I imagined.

Dark Fury is cool too- created by the guys who does Aeon Flux.

I liked Pitch Black & Riddick. Maybe not among my favourite films but pretty good. Actually the only other movie I've seen Diesel in is The Pacifier which I also liked (great one to watch with kids).

He was cool in Saving Private Ryan!
(He's the guy who gets shot in the spine in the French Town by that sniper in the tower, before Barry Pepper shoots him in the eye.)

I remember that scene but don't remember the particular character. I have been thinking of watching that film again sometime though. Especially after a recent replaying of Call of Duty which reminds me a lot of that film in terms of the realistic atmosphere.

It's got some awesome actors in it- Paul Giamatti is in there, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, The dude who played the Hebrew Hammer, and that Hanks guy....

According to everywhere I've seen, the first true video game turned into a movie was Super Mario Bros. in 1993. Double Dragon and Street Fighter were released in 1994, Mortal Kombat 1995.

Cloak & Dagger was released in 1984, however the video game it was based upon was actually made during the movie's development, according to IMDB:

The video game which is central to the movie had already been in development as production of the film began (the game then named "Agent X"); when Atari was consulted to provide a game as an element of the movie, they tweaked "Agent X" and renamed it Cloak & Dagger. Dabney Coleman's character was then named "Agent X" in the movie. The game saw limited arcade release.

So technically, this movie doesn't count in the list.

A few other interesting facts. Paul W. S. Anderson, the stupid man behind Resident Evil & Alien vs Predator, was the director of Mortal Kombat. Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie, was the first video game to movie production that made triple figure sums at the box office (274,500,000 worldwide). Resident Evil being the only other movie to do so. All the others have achieved double figure millions at best.

That's about all I could find. Both Alone in the Dark and House of the Dead bombed poorly last year upon release. Bloodrayne, Max Payne, Splinter Cell and Tekken are among many games that are in production in some way or form.

I just did a little search on google and according to Wikipedia, "One of the first films based on a video game property was The Wizard, which some criticized as a 90-minute ad for Super Mario Brothers 3."

A bigger list is games based on films and a lot of them have also flopped. ET was a classic example as tens of thousnads of copies of that game ended up as landfill. Good movie but Atari's cash-in game stank.
I remember a C64 Never Ending Story adventure game was not a bad one for its time. Of course the starwars PC games have had their gems (like the dark forces and tie fighter series) and their so-so games

The Wizard wasn't really based on a video game property, more incorporating various video games into the storyline (i.e. Super Mario Bros. 3). I did forget that one though, but I've never actually seen it ... hmmm ...

And the movie to video game list is far bigger, of course. Most are misses, but there are some unique gems in the mix too (Jurassic Park, Goldeneye, just to name two)

I actually enjoyed the 2nd half of the original Mortal Combat movie. Resident Evil was crap and a blight on zombie films!

no way. Resident Evil gave the Zombie genre a kick in the pants, and since then, we've seen more zombie movie attempts than we have for ages, like the Dawn of the Dead Remake, Land of the Dead, 28 Days Later (which aren't zombies but it fits into the category), Shaun of the Dead and Undead.

So Resident Evil provoked interest in a dead film genre. It's now an undead genre!