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.

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.

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.”