Top Four Roleplaying Games They Should Make Into Movies
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When it comes to roleplaying games and movies, there are usually two paths that both take to become entwined. The more successful path involves a movie that becomes a roleplaying game. Movies like Star Wars and Serenity are examples of movies (or in Serenity’s case, also a TV series) that became roleplaying games. The other path less traveled is the roleplaying game that becomes a movie. The prime example would be the movies that were spawned by roleplaying powerhouse, Dungeons & Dragons. The movie counterparts of this game were… well let’s just say they weren’t movie industry powerhouses.What roleplaying games have been made into movies? As we stated before, D&D, Star Wars, and Serenity both have movies and roleplaying games based on their settings. Robotech has a cartoon series and movies based off of it. Conan has been made into several movies and a roleplaying game. Call of Cthulhu is a roleplaying game where the author’s writings have also been turned into several different movies. But what roleplaying games haven’t been made into movies that should be?
Top Four Roleplaying Games They Should Make Into Movies
#4 – World of Darkness – So Vampire and Werewolf movies have been done to death (pun intended). Some of them have been quite successful even. The game itself is a story-telling game that could easily be made into a movie. Take the Camarilla, the Sabbat, and the Independent Vampire clans and throw them in a war with the different Garou tribes. If you want to really mix it up, start throwing in alternate plotlines with the Mages, Wraiths, and Changelings. Then there is the Hunter that is out to get them all. You could spawn the whole movie off into several different movies just like World of Darkness spawned off their roleplaying games. Take successful movies like Interview With A Vampire, Underworld, and Val Helsing to get a good idea for your movie base. This is one that definitely can be done!
#3 – Rifts – In 2004 Kevin Siembieda put out a press release talking about working on the Rifts movie script. Writer David Franzoni (writer of Gladiator, Amistad, and King Arthur) was supposed to be writing the scrift. Jerry Bruckheimer Films was in discussion with Kevin about various intricacies of the movies that Kevin was “not at liberty to reveal”. Bits and pieces were leaked for a while later and then the movie just dropped off the face of the planet. If it came out, I sure missed it! Kevin Siembieda was stating it was going to be more than just another second-rate sci-fi flick! So there is no way I missed it and the legendary series of movies it spawned. Or did I?
#2 – Warhammer – It is a war game. It is a roleplaying game. It is a video game. It is a massive multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG). There are tons of books written about it. Why the hell isn’t it a movie? I want this movie to be in between the epic odyssey that is Lord of the Rings, and the epic cheeseballness that is the Dungeons & Dragons movie. Something closer to Willow, but with a little more bite to it. This would be a director’s second chance to make a fantasy roleplaying game into a movie. They screwed up bad on D&D, maybe they can get this one right.
#1 – Shadowrun – Why the hell is this roleplaying game not a movie yet? This would be the baddest movie ever. Get Guillermo del Toro and, hell, for that matter get his entire crew that made Hellboy I and II. Get every guy involved in creating the Matrix movie fight scenes. Get these people a good script and then lock them in a studio until the movie is done. Oh, and make sure the guys who made Johnny Mnemonic get them coffee or something. I want to see Trolls pulling arm’s out of people’s sockets when they lose, just to make Chewbacca jealous. I want to see major corporate backstabbing and Street Samurai giving their best Wolverine impressions. I want to see what the magical future of our will look like in 2070.
So that is my list of roleplaying games I think should be made into movies. What roleplaying games are out there that you think should be made into movies?
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May 8, 2009 at 8:21 am
Unfortunately, I don’t see it as likely that a RPG would actually be turned into a worthwhile movie.
Stuart’s last blog post..Great GMing Advice
May 8, 2009 at 11:46 am
Good list! I’ll toss 3:16 into the list too. I’d absolutely love a decent Space Marine movie in the 3:!6 style.
A D&D movie that didn’t suck would be nice too…….
May 8, 2009 at 12:18 pm
I think a D&D film could be successful if it didn’t attempt to cater to actual roleplayers. I know folks who read every Dragonlance novel they can get their hands on but didn’t realize until several books in that the setting came out of Dungeons & Dragons. A good story sells itself. Too much of the material in the D&D movie was just so… corny.
Heck, maybe Weis and Hickman could write the script.
Josh’s last blog post..Problems Canceling a D&D Insider Account? I Canceled Mine Accidentally…
May 8, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Good list, but I think if I remember correctly that Vampire did get made into a TV series in the US (we never saw it in the UK). Kindred is what I seem to recall it being called.
As for the others, Warhammer will never happen. GW is far too overzealous to let anyone make a movie in their world. Shadowrun? Oh yes please! I would be right there in the front of the queue for that one.
ravenpolar’s last blog post..Photoshop Map Parchment
May 8, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Yeah, I remember Kindred: The Embraced. It owed a lot to Dark Shadows and was a horror/conspiracy series while The X-Files was around. Could have been so much better.
Movies… let’s see.
1. Delta Green – David Lynch or the Coen brothers could do this justice; a modern-day Cthulhu with US government agents doing Air America style-ops could be fun with Majestic-12 hot on their heels. CGI Mi-go.
2. Paranoia – Terry Gilliam for the win. He did Twelve Monkeys and Brazil so this should be a walk in the park by comparison. Having Gillian Anderson or Matt Frewer as the voice of the Computer would be a nice touch.
3. Macho Women With Guns – Now before you all lynch me for being a sexist redneck… you know it would probably be a legendary icon. Or it would spark the Apocalypse.
Either way, it would be better than anything by Uwe Boll.
Roberto Rodriguez would be the only possible director.
4. Dogs in The Vineyard. Clint Eastwood or Ron Howard as directors (or possibly Mel Gibson). It would be a sweeping panorama followed by tense plot followed by intense gunplay.
5. Exalted. Take any wu xia flick. Give it some very Western sensibilities or put it in the hands of a Korean director and you’ll get some real fireworks.
Actors? Vin Diesel and Robin Williams would kill to be in these movies as would Wil Wheaton.
satyre’s last blog post..even more gaming tools
May 9, 2009 at 12:51 am
Come, come now… Why hasn’t anyone said that they want to see the RPG “Toons” tuned into a movie???
Oh, I forgot. Ghostbusters made it into an RPG.
May 9, 2009 at 1:09 am
Oh I like the idea of a Dogs in the Vineyard movie!
Got another one.
Paranoia.
May 9, 2009 at 3:57 am
Not only is there Kindred, but White Wolf sued, albeit unsuccessfully, the makers of Underworld for copyright infringement. I tend to agree that the World of Darkness’ been covered in film with the numbers filed off.
Paranoia: BOTH Gillian Anderson and Matt Frewer as the Computer better represents our Friend’s character.
Steve Jackson Games should start licensing out its old game worlds. Banestorm! Terradyne! Technomancer! Illuminati University! Cthulhupunk!
Siskoid’s last blog post..Spaceknight Saturdays: Nick Fury and Ronald Reagan Throw Down
May 9, 2009 at 10:21 am
@Siskoid – You could do what they did with Ozzy Osbourne & Kylie Minogue in Moulin Rouge for the Absinthe Fairy. Gives me chills just thinking of it.
Cthulhupunk would be a nice touch.
satyre’s last blog post..giving back to the community: the twisted spires
May 9, 2009 at 11:25 am
Moulin Rouge: The Role-Playing Game.
Start the fear.
Siskoid’s last blog post..Spaceknight Saturdays: Nick Fury and Ronald Reagan Throw Down
May 9, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I’d kill for a Kylie Minogue role-playing game.
What?
May 9, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Ohhhh man, I don’t like where this is going…
May 10, 2009 at 1:25 pm
While I’d agree that Underworld would be the closest portrayal of the White Wolf system…..it’s far from close. The intricacies of the clans all working with and against each other really would be far more interesting to see, although I don’t think they could really cover much in one movie. It would have to be a nice long series.
May 10, 2009 at 4:29 pm
@ Everyone – Awesome comments all. Funniest comment discussion on this blog in a while.
May 13, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Deadlands: with Clint Eastwood as a Harrowed gunslinger and Christopher Lloyd as a mad scientist.
Hollow Earth Expeditions: awesome pulp.
For Paranoia the movie I’d like to see a group of trouble-shooters featuring Seth Rogan, Kevin Smith, Justin Long, Michael Cera, Patton Oswald and their team leader Vince Vaughn.
Dark Heresy: I creepy, dark look at the world of Warhammer 40K.
I’m sure there are a few other good ones as well.
John Lewis’s last blog post..RoleplayingPro – May 2009 Blog Progress
May 14, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I think franchises based on RPGs would be better-served as long-form mini-series than a two-hour motion picture. There is simply too much content but too little narrative in any one game universe to do them justice.
With that said, I’d put forth the following ideas:
Dark Sun – While most D&D properties are simply LoTR with the serial numbers filed off, Dark Sun attempted to create a truly unique and alien fantasy world. Think “Pirates of Darkwater” meets “A Canticle for Leibowitz”.
Cyberpunk 2020 – Rather than playing it out as a straight sci-fi action romp, the terribly dated nature of this material would make for a perfect parody of the now-defunct subgenre. Reshoot “Judge Dredd” as a comedy and it would be Cyberpunk!
Cthulu-Tech – Giant robots vs. elder space gods. Kind of a no-brainer.
Twilight: 2013 – Another post-bomb apocalypse movie but shot from the view of a soldier just trying to get home to the now-dissolved USA.
2300AD – Star Trek that uses real science. CJ Cherryh’s Merchanter-Alliance series without the space kitties. Done and done.
June 24, 2009 at 8:22 am
Longtime White Wolf fan, here. Lots of RPGs could build up to movies, but IMHO the nature of the genre lends itself more to either mini-series or something like “Doctor Who” and their multi-episode story arcs.
Specific games I’d like to see turned into movies or shows are:
Amber Diceless
TORG
Mage: the Ascension/Awakening
Promethean: the Created
Changeling: the Lost
GURPS: Technomancer
Deadlands
Mystic China (Palladium Press)
Nivens&Barnes “Dream Park” (Kinda cheating, since this game was derived from three novels… but kinda not, considering the nature of those novels)
One idea I’d like to see is a three-stage “reality show” based on translating an RPG to a miniseries. The first stage involves taking three or four different groups of gamers through the same campaign, filming them as they go, then transcribing as much of the game sessions as possible. The second stage involves the transition from “game” to “movie: each set of transcriptions and GM notes goes through a team of scriptwriters to see what kind of movie script they can come up with. The studio runs an online contest (kind of like “Project Greenlight”) and the fans decide which script should be turned into a movie. And the third stage involves shooting and post-production, where the gamers who played the PCs acting as consultants for the actors who will play the characters on-screen, and the GM acting as consultant for the director, stage manager, fight choreographer, etc.
I can see the complications and therefore ratings rising even as I describe it…
Perrin Rynning’s last blog post..Expanded character idea auditions
October 7, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Rifts is in the process of making a short movie by Bruckheimer and distributed by Disney. Yes I know, Disney. I cried in shame.
Hollyweird has a horribly tendency to butcher great material only to fulfill marketing and diversity quotas. They completely lose the spirit of the piece then complain when something bombs?
The only way films of such genre should go would be away from the Hollyweird corruption. Think Peter Jackson and LOTR, not Disney or Bruckheimer.
JMHO