Video game movies, especially of the live-action variety, already have a bad reputation, but what also tends to happen is that the movie never ends up getting made at all. You can see this in plenty of projects, even ones that did eventually see the light of day.
Movies like Five Nights at Freddy’s and Uncharted took a ridiculous amount of time to release, with Uncharted, in particular, being worked on for nearly 15 years. A lot of movies have been cancelled or stuck in limbo, with some reportedly still being worked on while others are clearly abandoned.
These all have to be long worked on projects, so you won’t see anything that’s just been announced in the last four years.
10Half-Life
The Game-Changing 1998 Title In Movie Form
Historically,Half-Lifewas the second most important shooter from the 90s, changing FPS games forever with its enemy AI, storytelling, and immersion. It makes sense that a movie would be in development, and in 2013, JJ Abrams announced one along with a film adaptation for Portal.
In 2016, Abrams said he would still direct these two films, but they’re still in the writing stage; that’s been it for updates. Many of these video game movies just can’t get a finished script, and while a Portal film does seem possible given its wider appeal, a Half-Life movie seems like a tough sell in today’s age of video game adaptations.
9Monkey Island
Even The Screenwriter’s Couldn’t Get Threeweed’s Name Right
Many video game films get publicly announced, but one that was quietly worked on wasMonkey Island. Lucasfilm started work on a fully animated Monkey Island movie around 2000, but it was likely to be a disaster. Modern adaptations like The Last of Us have key input from some of the creators, and this would have been crucial to Monkey Island due to the series' trademark style of humor.
However, the writing team for this film had no talks with the devs who were still making the games at the time, which not only changed the plot drastically but no doubt would have lost what made Monkey Islandso entertaining and funny. It got shelved due to the drastic changes, but a Monkey Island Disney film today would be interesting to see, considering how modern adaptations are handled.
8God Of War
The Sony Franchise That Can’t Get It Done
A movie was already in the works when the firstGod of Wargame came out in 2005. It seemed like a perfect match for a hard R-rated movie, and with films like 300 exploding in popularity in 2007, it just makes you wonder why a God of War film never came to be. It would be from Universal Studios instead of Sony Pictures or Columbia, oddly enough.
Progress stalled until 2012, when the ball appeared to be rolling. Veteran Saw writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan were hired for the script. Their idea was pretty interesting in that they would basically adapt the prequel games first, with the big blow-off instalment being an adaptation of the original. They did submit the script, but Universal didn’t seem to like it, as the project’s been dead ever since.
7DmC: Devil May Cry
One Film That Most Is Happy Didn’t Happen
The fan outcry towards theDevil May Cryreboot by Ninja Theory was immense. Even from the original trailer in 2010, people were pissed, and they got even more mad when the movie was announced. By Screen Gems, the same film studio behindthe live-action Resident Evil movies, a script was being written based on the upcoming reboot.
People already didn’t want a DMC movie by the folks behind the mostly bad Resident Evil films, but when they revealed it would be based on the reboot, fans were livid. Thankfully, that’s where the project ends, as there’s been no news since. Considering that the DMC reboot made less money than DMC4 if the movie was still being worked on, it no doubt got axed after the reboot’s performance.
6Splinter Cell
The Most Unbelievable Abandoned Film
When a film gets a full-blown teaser trailer, you’d think it’d inevitably release. One of the biggest gaming trolls of all time is theSplinter Cellmovie teaser as an extra for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. By Paramount Pictures, the teaser literally says coming soon only to theaters. What happened?
Despite that 2005 teaser, it wasn’t until 2012 that a lot of work was going into it, with actors, directors, and screenwriters getting tossed into the fray for years. Very similar to the development of the Assassin’s Creed film, and with shooting start dates being announced several times, you’d think the project would eventually come out. Nope, because after another version of the script was completed in 2017, there’s been no news since. That teaser is going to forever haunt Splinter Cell fans.
5Halo
Money Talks
Yes, there was aHaloTV series, but before that, a movie was in the works. From 2005 to 2007, 20th Century Fox and Universal were jointly making a live-action Halo movie directed by Neill Blomkamp and produced by Peter Jackson and Peter Schlessel. It was another rocky production, and it got to the point where Fox was threatening to pull out.
Universal then forced the producers to reduce their revenue deals to continue production, and they wisely declined. Considering Jackson’s legal troubles regarding revenue from the Lord of the Rings films, it was obvious he was going to decline here. No work on the film has progressed since, not even studio announcements.
4BioShock
Would You Kindly Release This Movie
BioShockis one game that can definitely work as a standalone film, especially as it fits the format better than a TV show. A film was in the works after the game shook the worldin the year 2007, with Gore Verbinski directing. It was given a big push with a $200 million budget, massive for the late 2000s. That’s more than the budget for The Dark Knight.
Just eight weeks before filming was set to start, conflicts between Universal and Verbinski came ahead, mainly due to the film’s bloated budget and planned R rating. The project eventually fell apart, but in 2022, Netflix announced a new adaptation. This one’s still in the works, with an update as recent as 2024’s San Diego Comic-Con, but it remains to be seen if it’ll ever see the light of day.
3Wheelman
Wheelman Power Slides Away From View
Some people might not know that Hollywood superstar Vin Diesel founded his own game company, Tigon Studios, which most famously created the Chronicles of Riddick games. Another title by them was Wheelman, a fun but forgettable car-focusedaction game for Xbox 360and PS3.
When the game was announced in 2006, a movie was revealed as well, with Vin Diesel to star, of course, and Rich Wilkes writing the screenplay. It was supposed to be a sequel, oddly enough, but the further adventures of Mr. Wheels weren’t meant to be, as the project was eventually abandoned. Considering Vin Diesel’s already a leading star in Fast and the Furious, having another car-focused action movie would be kind of pointless in the market.
2Stranglehold
Boiled Even Harder
Stranglehold, in essence, was meant to be a true John Woo action movie in video game form. It also happened to be the sequel to Hard Boiled with Chow Yun-fat returning, so it would make sense for an actual movie sequel to happen. At first, production started with the script being based directly on the game, but later, the film became a prequel.
Not to mention, the director wasn’t even going to be Mr. Woo himself, which isn’t what most wanted. The project was later abandoned, but it is surprising that no actual Hard Boiled sequel has been in the works ever since, considering today’s age of sequels, reboots, and remakes. It probably wouldn’t be based on Stranglehold, but it would be Stranglehold in spirit.
1Mortal Kombat 3
This Is No Future Past Annihilation
Standalone video game films aren’t the only ones to get the ax, as sequels will get cancelled just as much. The most laughable one, in hindsight, has to beMortal Kombat 3, the sequel to Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. One of the most infamously bad video game films of all time; it’s wild that production of a third film was supposed to start right after the second instalment’s release.
Obviously, after Annihilation dropped in 1997, no third film happened, but there were a ton of attempts in the 2000s and 2010s until finally, the MK reboot released in 2021. If you want a third 90s instalment, there is the Conquest TV show, but even that got its second season cancelled.
