Forget Angry Birds, these are the games Hollywood should turn into movies
From Angry Birds to Need for Speed to Tetris (seriously?), Hollywood loves turning games into blockbuster movies, so Team YP put together a list of games we’d like to see in cinemas
An Angry Bird.Forget Snakes on a Plane
Snake is a classic game that became huge when it was offered on Nokia phones. When your snake slithers, it travels a lot of places. I’d love to see a movie from the snake’s point of view about its adventure in the forest and how it survives a lot of challenges, such as how to find food and how to avoid enemies.
Tiffany Choi
Racing to box office success
The 1997 game Mario Kart, for the Nintendo 64. You might not know what an N64 is, but this was the ultimate console from my childhood. It would be amazing to see Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi and all the other characters exploring the different tracks, like Wario Stadium, Bowser’s Castle, or the famously tricky Rainbow Road, in a live action film. Best of all, the characters all have their own back stories and different beginnings, so it would be easy to give the film depth and create a really great plot.
Lucy Christie
Wii would love this version
With the huge success of movies such as Furious 7, Rush, and Initial D, how can Hollywood NOT make Mario Kart: The Motion Picture? It’s got everything you want: the will-they-won’t-they romance of Luigi and Princess Daisy; the historic bad blood between Mario and the evil Bowser; out-of-this-world sci-fi from Yoshi and Birdo; and even a touch of horror with King Boo and Dry Bones in the race. And if all that sounds too intense and serious for you, the ape family of Donkey, Funky, and Diddy Kong are on hand to lighten the mood with their comedic antics. Plus there’s the cuteness factor when Baby Mario and Baby Luigi join the fun. With fast cars and booby traps like squid ink and banana peels (not to mention the dreaded Blue Shell) it’s going to be one crazy series of races! Who will be the big winner? Why, the audience, of course!
Sam Gusway
Tiles teaming up
It’d be fun if Scrabble was made into an animation! We’d have to give them eyes, and some sort of hands and feet to make the tiles more human-like, of course. We could start off the film by Y and P, two tiles who are married, having a baby. Just like parents are excited about the gender of their baby, they’d be nervous about what letter their baby would be. Os and As are all too common, and their ScrabbleTown is really in need of extra Ts to win the next big match against a rival Scrabble village, which has invested in technology to help them form words more efficiently. The baby, however, turns out to be a blank, which has never happened before. Blank grows up, finding nobody else like himself while everyone else is telling him what to be. He feels like an outcast, being unable to join in the word-play of the other tiles. Of course, a menacing villain in the form of Pictionary threatens the well-being of the whole Scrabble community, because people prefer pictures to words now. It’s all down to Blank to prove his worth and save the day. This would be the perfect coming-of-age story about appreciating your uniqueness, accepting differences and working in teams. A sure Oscar contender!
Melanie Leung
Planet of the cats
Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector. The movie would be about what the cats are up to when the humans aren’t checking in on how many cats are in their yard and if they’d left behind any gifts. And what the cats are up to is: world domination. Because, naturally. There would be a kitty hierarchy and their leader would be Snowball, the most innocent looking of them all, but some cats aren’t keen on world domination and mutiny erupts within.
Heidi Yeung
Off with his head!
Guillotine, a card game set during the French Revolution. Players have to use “Actions” to put nobles on the guillotine to collect points. The movie would be about how the nobles, knowing the guillotine is waiting for them at the end of day, try to escape the fate but in the end realise that their fate is decided by random people and their random actions. It’ll take you back to the terror and horror of that intense period of time in history.
Young Wang
Battling blades
Not many games have a rich storyline, but Infinity Blade seems to break this rule. It is an epic game where the main character, Siris, has a number of one-on-one battles, with an ultimate goal of defeating the God King. Its intense combat and superb graphics are impressive, but I am more interested in his fighting techniques, such as how to skilfully use a sword or block attacks with shields.
Ben Pang
Words with spies
Although Tetris is my favourite video game (read: one of two I’ve ever played, ever), I’m not convinced by the idea of the promised Tetris movie. What can they be about, building a wall? Instead, I’d rather watch a movie inspired by Boggle, the game of lettered dice and trying to find as many words as you can from the letters you see; but my film would be a spy film, where secret messages have to be decoded from the dice in order to save the city from dastardly villains.
Karly Cox
A league of its own
As the resident games nerd, I could think of a dozen games that deserve to be made into movies. But one particularly close to my heart is League of Legends. Obvious choice it may be, something that people seem to forget while playing it is the deep and rich lore behind the game. Most only play champions based on how powerful they are, but each character is the hero of their own story, with their own personality, history and motivations. A movie would be the perfect chance to bring those overlooked elements to the forefront.
Wong Tsui-kai