Surprisingly, it’s only in recent years that Hollywood has managed to crack the code on video game adaptations. Apart from these films, we have had hits on the small screen such as “Fallout” and “The Last of Us”. But at the same time, on the cinema side, we continued to make disconcerting errors, as in Eli Roth’s “Borderlands.” It’s always a mixed bag. What “Sonic” is saying is that video games can indeed represent a bright future for on-screen franchises, but only if they’re executed correctly.

Video games have a massive built-in audience. They often contain large worlds filled with rich narratives. When everything goes well, we can get monster hits like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” These audiences are extremely loyal. Yet for decades, studios seemed to show an active disrespect to the source material when adapting video games for the big screen. Time and time again we have seen things go wrong. The studios seemed to be saying, “See, these video game movies don’t work!” »

What “Sonic the Hedgehog” helped demonstrate on a grand scale is that video game movies can work incredibly well, and that it’s all about execution. Undeniably, most of the time the problems are execution related. So of course, Hollywood should probably try to make a ‘Grand Theft Auto’ movieor any other popular video game, but they should do it respectfully, taking a page from the franchise’s book instead of bending recognizable characters to fit a story that feels unnatural.

We talked a little more about it in today’s episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to below:

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“Sonic the Hedgehog 3” is currently in theaters. You can buy the first two “Sonic” films on 4K, Blu-ray or DVD on Amazon.