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How video game movies got good (Patrick H. Willems)
🕑 Added 2025-08-22 17:00:56 +0000 UTC
Video game adaptations threaten to replace superhero movies as Hollywood's favorite fad. How did Mario and friends evolve from box office poison into some of the most valuable IPS in movie history? Today on Post Games: an extended interview with filmmaker and video essayist Patrick H. Willems, in which we make sense of 30 years and five distinct eras of video game adaptations.
Act 1: The Doomed Decades
Act 2: The Hollywood Hits
A Patreon bonus: The Future of Video Game Movies
Patrick sticks around to speculate on the future of video game adaptations – including no fewer than 46 movies in active development
Act 3: The News of the Week
You can now watch Post Games shorts on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Like the show? Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!
Act 1: The Doomed Decades
When The Faithful Adaptation Is Actually Worse (Patrick H Willems on YouTube)
Patrick H Willems' Nebula channel (Nebula)
The Making of the Super Mario Bros. Movie (The Gaming Historian)
‘Mortal Kombat’: Untold Story of the Movie That “Kicked the Hell” Out of Everyone (Hollywood Reporter)
The world’s biggest Street Fighter movie fan explains why it’s an accidental masterpiece (Polygon)
Act 2: The Hollywood Hits
Video game movies, ranked by Tomato Meter (Rotten Tomatoes)
Warcraft ½-star review (RogerEbert.com)
A positive review of Warcraft (Keith and the Movies)
The fastest interview ever with Ben Schwartz from Sonic the Hedgehog (Polygon on YouTube)
The Last of Us enters perilous territory (Vulture)
‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Hits $1.3 Billion Globally, Surpassing ‘Frozen’ as Second-Biggest Animated Film of All Time (Variety)
Patreon bonus: The future of video game movies
‘Legend of Zelda’ Live-Action Movie Finds Its Zelda and Link (Hollywood Reporter)
List of films based on video games (Wikipedia)
Death Stranding is getting a second movie adaptation (Polygon)
Elden Ring movie: Everything we know so far about the adaptation of FromSoftware's classic (Games Radar)
Act 3: News of the week
Why Silksong took seven years to make (Bloomberg)
Hollow Knight: Silksong - Release Trailer (Team Cherry on YouTube)
Sony is raising PS5 prices, starting tomorrow (The Verge)
Microsoft is raising prices on Xbox consoles, controllers, and games worldwide (The Verge)
Nintendo raises the Switch 1 price from $299 to $339 (The Verge)
Can Garfield Kart 2 compete with Hollow Knight: Silksong? Who cares, dude? (Polygon)
This week in video game links
Resident Evil Requiem's new trailer makes a great case for Grace Ashcroft, not boring old Leon Kennedy, being the anxiety-riddled hero we need for the series' scariest entry yet (Games Radar)
Minna no Golf Portable: Lost down the hole (Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster)
One Of FFXIV‘s Most Important Mods Is Shutting Down And People Are Losing It (Kotaku)
In Pyre, Every Game Is a God Game (SideQuest)
Even if you're as tired of parrying in action games as I am, pay attention to Onimusha (PCGamer)
Pragmata's blend of shooting and hacking is the most stressful new idea I've seen in a shooter in generations, and it's brilliant (Eurogamer)
You can build 136 million different houses in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's new DLC, if you really must (RPS)
What is Campaign 4 (Critical Role)
New Vita game in 2025 (Bsky)
Free game of the week: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter
I’m tempted to finally become a Trails fan. Will this demo tip me over the edge? Here’s the synopsis: “Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter reimagines the first chapter of a beloved series, infusing it with enhanced visuals and refined gameplay. Join Estelle and Joshua, partners bound by fate, as they unravel dark conspiracies threatening the peace of the Liberl Kingdom.”
What else I’m enjoying
ARCO - Official Teaser Trailer (IGN)
A favorite one-pot chicken and mushroom recipe to bookmark for the fall (NYTimes)
It's Time We Talked about Disco Elysium, Again (People Make Games)
Chance the Rapper - Star Line ALBUM REVIEW (Theneedledrop)
Comments
Chris Plante
Amazing! I'll share this with Patrick!
Jim
There is a video game form of my dinner with Andre made for the game boy color
Jim
https://gumpyfunction.itch.io/my-dinner-with-andre
Chris Plante
All credit goes to James Bareham. I think it could be cool to have alternates for each episode!
Nawt Poncho
I love the new cover image!
Marcus
People here have been great! Feels like Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon’s Exploding Giraffe community, which is sadly over now.
