"The videogame business is successful by itself. It doesn’t need this outlet," says the CEO of Microsoft Gaming.
Every year more and more games are adapted into TV shows, and hardly a day goes by without a new adaptation deal being announced, from a second Resident Evil movie reboot to a film based on Split Fiction to the Just Cause movie—announced way back in 2011—once again getting a new writer and director.
It’s easy to see why. All those previous Resident Evil movies grossed over a billion dollars combined, The Super Mario Bros. Movie took in over $1.3 billion in 2023, and each of the three Sonic movies did in the neighborhood of half a billion each. No wonder Hollywood loves games these days.
But according to Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, games don’t need Hollywood.
“The videogame business is successful by itself. It doesn’t need this outlet,” Spencer told Variety, adding “let’s never turn this into something where it has to get done, every franchise has to have a game or a movie or a TV show, and it becomes more like licensing.”
Of course, that’s easy for him to say as A Minecraft Movie cruises past $500 million at the box office, a sequel has already been greenlit, and Minecraft TV show is in the works at Netflix. Not to mention, the Fallout TV series (Microsoft owns Bethesda now, remember) was a critical hit and a second season is currently in production. Even Halo, despite not being very good, was still given two seasons on Paramount Plus. Microsoft even took it in the other direction last year, with its videogame adaptation of a movie series: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
And despite suggesting that games really don’t need to be turned into movies and TV shows, Spencer teased that there are more adaptations of Microsoft properties in the works—though he wouldn’t spill any details.
“We learned from doing Halo, we learn from doing Fallout. All of these build on themselves and we’ll have, obviously, a couple that miss, it’s just kind of part of it,” he said. “But I think what I’d say to the community that likes this work is, you’re going to see more [adaptations], because we’re gaining confidence, and we’re learning through this.
“That’s why it’s hard for me to tease any specific thing, because while I know all of these things that are in the creative process, I want to give them time, and I don’t want to put any undue pressure on them,” Spencer said. “There’s just a lot of interest from traditional media and we’re happy about that.”
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