Transcript
ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
And now from the future to the grid.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “A MINECRAFT MOVIE”)
JACK BLACK: (As Steve) Chicken jockey.
NADWORNY: If you don’t know where that’s from, ask anyone who’s played the game Minecraft. Jack Black’s fully committed performance in “A Minecraft Movie” helped it become the highest grossing film of 2025.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “A MINECRAFT MOVIE”)
BLACK: (As Steve) A wonderland where anything you can imagine is possible.
NADWORNY: This year brings other video game adaptations like Zach Cregger’s critical and box office hit “Resident Evil”…
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “RESIDENT EVIL”)
AUSTIN ABRAMS: (As Bryan) There’s an emergency here. I was wondering if I could use your phone.
NADWORNY: …And “Street Fighter.”
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “STREET FIGHTER”)
CALLINA LIANG: (As Chun-Li) You were the best fighter in the world. And then you disappeared. What happened?
NADWORNY: And there are many more to come. So on this week’s Cineplexity, we wanted to dig into Hollywood’s growing obsession with video games. Joining me are ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Vincent Acovino, who handles a lot of our video game coverage.
VINCENT ACOVINO, BYLINE: Hello.
NADWORNY: And Stephen Thompson, host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour – hello, Stephen.
STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: Hello.
NADWORNY: Real quick, give me a rundown of Hollywood’s relationship with video games.
ACOVINO: I think it’s a complicated relationship because there’s this feeling that video game movies are very bad.
THOMPSON: (Laughter).
ACOVINO: And I think that that is true from, like, a critical perspective where if you’re looking at movies, like – is this interesting from a cinema level? – the answer is, like, most of the time, no, and that’s because I think a couple of reasons. One is that oftentimes video game movies are treated like extensions of an IP, and you can’t take many risks with. So, in my opinion, I would put “Minecraft,” and I would put, like, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” in that camp.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE”)
BLACK: (As Bowser) Hey, Luigi. What’s up, Mario?
ACOVINO: These are kind of just, like, watchable plushies.
THOMPSON: (Laughter).
ACOVINO: And then I think the other unfortunate thing that happened is in the early 2000s, when a lot of video game movies were getting adapted, there was some really bad directors attached to some of the projects.
(LAUGHTER)
THOMPSON: Yeah.
ACOVINO: I mean, they kept making money. So that’s part of the reason that they kept getting greenlit.
NADWORNY: Even though they’re bad, they’re – yeah.
ACOVINO: Yeah, I mean, I think for a while there was, like, people are going to see this because they are familiar with the video games, regardless of the quality.
NADWORNY: Yeah.
ACOVINO: And so I think because that stigma got attached to it, there was kind of this, like, unfortunate stink around video game movies.
NADWORNY: Unfortunate stink – or, like, we don’t have to really resource these or, like…
ACOVINO: Yes.
NADWORNY: …Care more critically about them.
THOMPSON: Yeah, exactly. And I – you know, I think one thing that Vinny (ph) is really getting at here is the double-edged sword of fan service…
NADWORNY: Yeah.
THOMPSON: …And kind of the idea that the job of a movie is to placate and excite the fans of the existing property, as opposed to kind of making a movie that really stands freely on its own.
NADWORNY: I guess I’m wondering, since we’ve been making these video adaptation films for a long time, like, why are they gaining traction now? Why are we talking about them now?
THOMPSON: Hollywood is a factory that runs on intellectual property. And, you know, a lot of Hollywood has really been reliant on comic books for providing that source material, but that has become a less reliable engine of economic success. And so I think Hollywood is kind of turning to other intellectual property. And anytime you have the success of something like the “Barbie” movie, you’ll have suddenly a bunch of movies that are based on toys, right? But video games, I think, it, you know, gives you a clearer framework for churning out films based on existing, well-known intellectual property.
NADWORNY: OK, I want to talk about the film “Resident Evil.”
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “RESIDENT EVIL”)
EMILY PIGGFORD: (As Dr. Maria Stokes) You got time for another run? Raccoon City General.
ABRAMS: (As Bryan) No sweat.
NADWORNY: This is from writer-director Zach Cregger. His last film, “Weapons,” was a big hit. It got an Oscar win. His new film is getting, what seems to me, kind of the best critical reception of a video game adaptation ever. You two saw the film. How has this film succeeded where others have not?
THOMPSON: I think the first place that it succeeds is it’s not beholden to the other kind of misbegotten entries in the “Resident Evil” movie series. Zach Cregger took elements of the game and let himself be inspired by that instead of being tied down to the lore of the other movies. And I think that’s the first really smart decision that was made in this particular adaptation. And then he just kind of pulled a little bit from a lot of different horror franchises.
NADWORNY: What about you, Vinny?
ACOVINO: Yeah. I’m, like, terrified that…
THOMPSON: (Laughter).
ACOVINO: …The reason that I don’t love this movie is ’cause I have played all the Resident Evil games, and I really don’t want to be that guy.
NADWORNY: You’re too close – yeah (ph).
THOMPSON: That could be. Could be. You could be that guy.
ACOVINO: I really don’t want to be that guy. Audiences really love this movie. I saw it twice ’cause the first time I didn’t really like it that much, so I went to see it again.
THOMPSON: (Laughter).
NADWORNY: Wow. You’re like, I got to go back.
ACOVINO: I was like, maybe I missed something. And I think the more I think about why I don’t love this movie, I came in with baggage, both from Resident Evil and Zach Cregger.
THOMPSON: Oh, interesting.
ACOVINO: Yeah, I think Cregger, specifically, like, his past movies like “Weapons” and “Barbarian” – they both told, like, very simple stories but in kind of inventive ways. So they had, like, multiple perspectives and multiple characters. And Resident Evil is also a video game franchise that does that all the time. And so I thought in my head, there must be something really clever in these movies…
NADWORNY: (Laughter).
ACOVINO: …That’s going to happen narratively that’s going to make this movie feel, like, special and Resident Evil in that way. And that doesn’t happen at all.
THOMPSON: Vinny, that movie is so funny.
ACOVINO: I know.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “RESIDENT EVIL”)
ABRAMS: (As Bryan) Anybody order a kidney or a liver or whatever this is? Anybody? It seems like it’s kind of important.
ACOVINO: To respond to that, specifically, Resident Evil games truly terrify me, like, truly terrify me. And even though they are campy and fun, which I think the movie absolutely nailed, they also are really scary, and I don’t think this movie’s scary. That being said, though, I’m not totally dumping on this movie. I liked it, and I enjoyed it.
(LAUGHTER)
ACOVINO: I just – like, I am truly surprised by how much people love it. And Stephen is disappointed in me. I hear it (inaudible).
NADWORNY: No, stop.
THOMPSON: Vinny, I love you like a son.
(LAUGHTER)
THOMPSON: But I do think you’re bypassing one of this film’s greatest strengths, which is how funny it is.
ACOVINO: Yeah.
THOMPSON: And it has a lot of kind of physical comedy that feels inspired by, like, “Looney Tunes.” To me, like, if you want me to love your horror movie, it can’t just be grim and gritty all the time. There has to be this tension release, and in this film, that tension release comes from comedy…
ACOVINO: Yeah.
THOMPSON: …And particularly physical comedy.
ACOVINO: Yeah, it’s true. It is really like you’re watching, like, The Three Stooges sometimes…
THOMPSON: Totally.
ACOVINO: …And in a fun way, in a fun way.
THOMPSON: I’m so here for that.
ACOVINO: Yeah.
NADWORNY: OK, so, Vinny, maybe not “Resident Evil” for you, but is there a video game that you think could make for a great film?
ACOVINO: I think if you made a Grand Theft Auto movie with, like, Paul Thomas Anderson directing it, that might be the best movie ever made.
THOMPSON: I mean, great car chase in his last one.
ACOVINO: Great car chases, Grand Theft Auto is one of the most popular video games in the world.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE ACTOR: (As character) The city is changing. But money still waits for people who can risk everything.
ACOVINO: It’s this open-world crime drama where you can – basically, the premise is you can do whatever you want.
NADWORNY: (Laughter).
ACOVINO: But it really captures this picture of contemporary America. It’s like, almost like a satire of, like, American culture and everything. So I (ph)…
NADWORNY: Guns, cars.
ACOVINO: Exactly, exactly.
NADWORNY: (Laughter).
ACOVINO: And I feel like if you have, like, a Scorsese or, like, a Paul Thomas Anderson do Grand Theft Auto, oh, my God, I’d probably lose my mind. That’d be awesome.
NADWORNY: Wow. OK. Stephen, yeah, what about you?
THOMPSON: I mean, the first, you know, franchise that kind of popped into my head is Legend of Zelda. The basic premise is that, you know, you have a young warrior named Link who’s trying to defend the kingdom of Hyrule.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO GAME, “THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD”)
ANDI GIBSON: (As Impa) The history of the royal family of Hyrule is also the history of the Calamity Ganon, a primal evil that has…
THOMPSON: Open-world game, you’re a little guy, you’re running around, you’re fighting people. And of course, I’m like, oh, they should do that. And then I do a little bit of Googling, and there’s a Legend of Zelda movie scheduled to come out next year. But the fact that that game is really open-world – it’s very inventive. It’s beautiful. It gives you kind of a lot of narrative space to play around with, where a visionary director and visionary writer can come up with something that feels true to that world without necessarily being deeply beholden to, like, catchphrases and gimmicks within that world. So that’s kind of what immediately pops into my head.
ACOVINO: Very good.
NADWORNY: That was NPR’s Stephen Thompson and Vincent Acovino. Thank you, guys, for joining us.
THOMPSON: Thank you.
ACOVINO: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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