Nintendo’s announcement two days ago that they are going to start producing movies based on their popular franchises has our minds swirling with the endless possibilities. While we’d of course like to see Mario and Zelda — the two franchises casually mentioned during the interview — adapted to the big screen, there are a number of other franchises we think would make for great source material.
Metroid
The Metroid series is just begging to be adapted to film. Samus’ interplanetary exploits seem like the perfect source material for a science fiction thriller or horror romp. While certain attempts at injecting the Metroid games with story have failed miserably — we’re looking at you, Metroid: Other M, you miserable pile of melodrama that reduced Samus to a sniveling child instead of celebrating her as the havoc-wreaking bad-ass true fans know her to be — games like Metroid Fusion and Metroid Prime have proven the rich potential of the series’ lore.
Mother
While fans may not ever get an officially sanctioned translation of Mother 3 — which isn’t too big a deal given the top-notch quality of the fan translation released a few years ago — what’s stopping the big N from adapting the series’ story to the big screen? It’s hilarious and heart-wrenching, and though fitting everything into a couple hours of run time will certainly be a challenge, the way the series treats its media — the games are brimming with self-aware breaches of the fourth wall — could make for an interestingly esoteric experience. Who wouldn’t want to see Ness‘s epic battle with Giygas beautifully rendered for the big screen?
Pikmin
While the story in Pikmin has always been as slight as its microscopic characters, there is a lot of potential for creating an animated movie based on the series. The game’s environments are lush microcosms of natural intrigue. The game’s backstory — an astronaut crash-lands on a mysterious planet inhabited by surprisingly helpful minions and monsters who want to eat them — is perfect for a children’s movie. Olimar’s quest to rebuild his spaceship could prove rather compelling — it could be like The Martian for an audience less interested in science and more interested in adorable plant creatures.
Eternal Darkness
Nintendo renewed the trademark for Silicon Knights’ Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem last year. The game, released for GameCube in 2002, is a time-travelling Cthulhuian nightmare with one of the best stories in gaming. The game follows Alexandra Roivas, who explores her grandfather’s mansion after his mysterious — and gruesome — death. She finds a tome bound with human skin— because that’s totally normal — and when she begins reading it, she finds herself transported to different eras throughout history, into the bodies of various figures, doing battle with nightmarish zombies and trying to maintain sanity. It would work incredibly well as a live-action horror movie.
Read more about Nintendo’s decision to produce movies here: