GamesBeat Summit 2025: The Key to Success in Game Adaptations

GamesBeat Summit 2025: The Key to Success in Game Adaptations – Trust and authenticity are key to Hollywood adaptations

From “Minecraft” to “The Last of Us,” why has Hollywood suddenly begun producing game adaptations?
Recently, the adaptation of game IPs into film and television works has seen significant progress in Hollywood.

Video game adaptations continue to create a craze in Hollywood. The global box office for the “Minecraft” feature film has exceeded $900 million USD. The second season of HBO’s “The Last of Us” has received overwhelming praise, with the third season already in preparation. Amazon’s “Fallout” Season 2, as well as sequels to “Super Mario Bros. the Movie” and many other game adaptation films and TV series, are about to be released.

At the GamesBeat Summit 2025 “Hollywood and Games” forum held in Los Angeles, industry insiders highlighted that the common factor among these successful adaptations is their commitment to authenticity. These works not only preserve the essence of the original material but also deeply understand why the games resonate with players.

“I think the thing that the top movies have done well is actually listening to the fan base,” said Baobab Studios CEO Maureen Fan at the panel. “In Hollywood, there’s this [attitude of], ‘I’m the creative, I know best.’ And I feel like the reasons why these top movies did well is they actually listened.” This process involves not only organizing player focus groups but also maintaining regular communication with the original game developers. When Fan’s team adapts a game IP, they communicate with the developers monthly to discuss potential player reactions to the project.

Luminate’s research data on the top-grossing video game-based films.

“My background is user experience research, so I really value that [process]. But that’s really something that my team has had to learn,” said Fan. “My co-founder directed all the Madagascar films. My co-chief creative officer was the sole producer of Moana. So they come from this world that’s very much ‘I know better.’ But over the last however many years we’ve been around, they’ve now got to the point where they’re craving that data. They want to talk to the audience, especially when you’re doing Gen Z stuff and you’re of a different generation.”
Behind-the-scenes talent is equally crucial. Although film and television companies are aggressively competing for large-scale game IPs, George Collins, president of Alcon Interactive, believes that finding the right directors and screenwriters will be the core competitive advantage in the future—particularly those who can bring fresh perspectives to these IPs.

“If you think about things like Greta Gerwig doing Barbie, or [Phil] Lord and [Christopher] Miller doing Lego — those could have been really corny, awful movies,” said Collins. “But because they really had a [specific] idea, they took it in directions you wouldn’t have expected. That’s what made them good.”

The Unadapted Giants: The Trade-off Between Cost and Risk
Despite the recent success of game adaptations, top IPs such as “Call of Duty” and “Grand Theft Auto” remain unadapted in Hollywood. Dan Prigg, head of Skydance Interactive, attributes this primarily to high costs.

“You’re not going to get Grand Theft Auto for anything cheap these days, and that’s just for the licensing fee, right?,” said Prigg. “And then you throw in the actual production value that you would have to input to match the level of expectation I think the audience [would have] — people would just look at the spreadsheet and be like ‘Nope, that’s a huge risk.’ It could be a huge hit, but it’s also a huge risk.”

Collins noted that a Call of Duty movie in particular has been floating around Hollywood for a little while, but the issue is less about cost and more about finding the right script and story.

“I think it’s more like you have to get a script, either a pilot or a theatrical script, that you believe in,” said Collins. “You have to be able to attach people that you know can really make a good film or a good TV show, a good showrunner. And that isn’t as easy as you think.”

Without the right talent and story behind a project, you risk damaging not only the movie’s brand, but also the reputation of the game and of the developer. Back when Fan was VP of games at Zynga, she recalled how the success of Farmville attracted someone from Hollywood who wanted to make a Farmville TV show. She said no at the time, arguing that the game was already making a lot of money and didn’t want to risk damaging its reputation.

“There’s a lot of downsides because if someone makes a crappy adaptation, they’re going to screw up my brand and jeopardize my main revenue stream or upset my audience members, my players, right? I have to really trust that I believe in this director, I believe in this script, for me to do it,” said Fan.