The next frontier of Hollywood IP harvesting

Hollywood is finally leveling up.

For decades, studios have tried to capitalize on the financial success and cultural relevance of video games, but it’s only been in the past few years that things have clicked.

With the box office achievements of Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and Warner Bros.’ “A Minecraft Movie,” alongside television hits like Amazon Prime Video’s “Fallout” and HBO’s “The Last of Us,” Hollywood has doubled down on its investment in content based on video game franchises and related intellectual property.

“Adaptations of popular games used to be met with a high degree of cynicism and creative misfires, but recent blockbusters and commercial hits have reversed the curse,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory.

Just this week, Paramount announced it would develop a live-action Call of Duty movie and distribute the latest Street Fighter adaptation as part of a three-year distribution deal with Legendary. Also on the development docket are features based on “Elden Ring,” “Helldivers,” “Horizon Zero Dawn” and “The Legend of Zelda.”

On the television side, treatments for Tomb Raider, God of War, Mass Effect and Assassin’s Creed are in the works.

“Video game movies and TV shows are not new, but they’re certainly getting a better volume and they’re getting better,” said Alicia Reese, analyst at Wedbush.

The first video game adaptation to hit theaters was 1993’s “Super Mario Brothers.” The live-action feature based on the hit Nintendo property tallied $20.9 million domestically at the time and was widely panned by critics.

For the next two decades, Hollywood managed to make enough back on production budgets that studios kept justifying future adaptations, but there always seemed to be something lost in translation between the game controller and the theater.

Between 1993 and 2018, only three video game-based films generated more than $100 million at the domestic box office — 2001’s “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” 2016’s “The Angry Birds Movie” and 2018’s “Rampage,” according to data from Comscore.

During this same period, not a single video game movie generated a “fresh” rating from review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The site’s rating has become a benchmark over the past two decades, as moviegoers often consult the website before they decide to go see a film.

Rotten Tomatoes aggregates reviews from major publications and reputable blogs and determines what percentage of those reviews were positive versus negative. If at least 60% of a film’s reviews are positive, it will receive a red tomato, which is considered “fresh.” If it gets less than 60%, it is given a green splat.

And then something shifted in 2019.

Warner Bro.’s “Pokémon Detective Pikachu” not only hauled in $144 million domestically, it scored a 68% “fresh” rating. The film became the second-highest video game adaptation ever with $433.5 million in global receipts. Universal’s 2016 “Warcraft” was the only film with higher ticket sales at the time, with $433.6 million worldwide; however, only $47.3 million of that came from domestic audiences, Comscore reported.

A month before pandemic shutdowns, Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog” hit theaters, earning a 64% “fresh” rating and zapping up $144 million domestically and $319 million globally.

Its run was cut short, but audience turnout and enthusiasm brought two more theatrical Sonic films and a spin-off streaming show called “Knuckles.” The franchise has now generated more than $1 billion at the global box office since 2019 and a fourth film is due out in 2027.

The franchise paved the way for “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which debuted in April 2023 and shattered box office records for video game adaptations. It generated $574 million domestically, the most of any video game film ever, and more than $1.3 billion globally, the first and only film of the genre to reach that feat.

Another big hit for the industry was 2025’s “A Minecraft Movie,” which topped $423 million in the U.S. and Canada and $957 million at the global box office.

While critical responses to “Super Mario” and “Minecraft” were lukewarm — 59% and 48%, respectively — audience scores were much stronger at 95% and 85%, respectively.

“If it weren’t for ‘Minecraft,’ 2025 year-to-date would be looking, honestly, pretty dismal,” said Doug Creutz, an analyst at TD Cowen. “‘Minecraft’ really helped at the time of the year, April, when it’s usually a little quieter.”

Video game films have hit their stride as technological advancements in computer-generated imagery made creating the worlds within these digital spaces easier and also more realistic.

Previous video game adaptations focused more on worldbuilding than character development, Toby Ascher, who acquired the rights to Sonic and produced the film franchise, told CNBC back in March when discussing how Paramount handled the production of the first Sonic film.

Now, that worldbuilding is easier, so studio creatives can focus on the story they are bringing to the big screen, said industry analyst David Poland.

“‘Minecraft, like the world of it, almost becomes a background,” Poland said. “Then you’re able to tell these stories where the obsession is not getting the background correct, but getting a story that people actually engage with. So, in some ways, I think the technology has allowed them to get away from the games to a certain extent, and get to things that people connect with while also maintaining the integrity of the games in the first place.”

At the same time, the kids who grew up playing video games have now become adults and are the ones making these films.

“I don’t think anyone in town really thought making a Sonic movie was a good idea,” Ascher said back in March. “But, I think our strategy was that we had grown up with these games. We’ve grown up with these characters, and we wanted to treat them like any other character. We wanted to give them real emotional arcs, and real emotional stories where you could relate to them.”

Paramount’s Chairman and CEO David Ellison also touted his fandom in announcing the company’s partnership with Activision to bring Call of Duty to the big screen.

“As a lifelong fan of Call of Duty this is truly a dream come true,” Ellison said. “From the first Allied campaigns in the original Call of Duty, through Modern Warfare and Black Ops, I’ve spent countless hours playing this franchise that I absolutely love.”

The Entertainment Software Association estimates that more than 205 million Americans play video games, with the highest concentration of gamers coming from Gen Alpha, Gen Z and Millennials. That is a massive audience of people who have spent a lot of time invested in this kind of IP, Poland noted.

“If movie studios and theater owners want to meet young audiences where they are and have them become a consistent part of the future of moviegoing, the video game world is unsurpassed in untapped potential,” Robbins said.

“The additional upside is that the non-gamer audience could show up for these films and discover them for the first time,” he added. “Quality will always be king, though, so care must be taken and audiences must be heard. Ultimately, engaging Gens Z and Alpha directly through the communities of social influencers and content creators could pay tremendous dividends for the movie business.”

Drawing younger generations to cinemas is key when it comes to keeping the box office booming. Ultimately, analysts don’t see video game movies growing the industry exponentially, but rather acting as a replacement for genres that are not drawing in audiences and luring in a younger demographic and training them to be more avid moviegoers.

“As a genre, the video game adaptation represents a new frontier and studios may be looking to such future projects to fill the void that has been left by some inconsistent performances by films from the superhero category that historically has been heavily relied upon to be a key pillar of the box office,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “A virtual treasure trove of beloved brands, characters, situations, and stories await producers and filmmakers who are hoping to further cash in on video game fever.”

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango.