For the longest time, the term “video game movie” was never synonymous with adjectives like good, enjoyable, or even faithful, but that has all changed in recent years with video game movies like Sonic the Hedgehog and shows like HBO’s The Last of Us. And with the slate of upcoming video game movies and TV shows, it looks like the dark days of the poorly-received Max Payne, Resident Evil, and Prince of Persia adaptations are nothing more than a distant memory.
Over the course of the next few years video game fans will be treated to some truly promising movies and TV shows adapting modern classics like Borderlands, God of War, and (my personal favorite) Metal Gear Solid. With so much in the works, now is the perfect time to lay it all out and go through what’s set to be released in the very near future.
Borderlands - August 9, 2024
The Borderlands movie, which is based on the popular dystopian yet colorful first-person shooter game franchise, seems to be one of the more promising upcoming video game movies considering everyone involved. Written by Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and directed by the great Eli Roth, the Borderlands cast includes Kevin Hart, Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jack Black all playing iconic characters from the franchise. The action comedy will follow the central cast as they form an unexpected alliance to track down a missing girl and save her from the dangers of the mysterious planet.
Production on Borderlands has officially kicked off in April 2021, but there will be 2023 reshoots with Tim Miller stepping in for Eli Roth, according to Deadline.
Sonic The Hedgehog 3 - December 20, 2024
Director Jeff Fowler proved that he could catch lightning in a bottle for a second time with the critically acclaimed and financially successful release of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in April 2022, and now he’ll get a chance to do it all over again when the third installment in the franchise lands in theaters in late 2024.
In August 2022, just a few months after Ben Schwartz’s blue blur defeated Jim Carrey’s Dr. Robotnik in epic fashion, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Paramount Pictures had set a release date of December 20, 2024 for the popular video game movie franchise’s return. Not a lot about the movie has been revealed at this point, and we’ll still have to wait and see if Carrey will in fact stay retired or come back to take on his longtime foe at least one more time.
Halo Season 2 - TBD
As far as video game adaptations go, the Paramount+ original series Halo did a tremendous job of appealing to longtime fans of the first-person shooter while also being accessible to new fans. And despite receiving mixed reviews from critics upon its debut in March 2022, the series was popular with audiences, who watched it in droves, making the news of a second season not all that shocking.
No release date has been announced at this time, Collider reported in September 2022 that production on the sophomore effort was already underway in Iceland with additional shooting scheduled for later in the year in Hungary. Expect to hear more about the return of Pablo Schreiber’s Master Chief fairly soon.
Mortal Kombat 2 - TBD
Despite being one of the 2021 Warner Brothers movies that debuted on HBO Max the same time it opened in theaters, Mortal Kombat was a sizable box office success, meaning it was all but certain that a sequel would be on the way sooner rather than later. In July 2022, Deadline revealed that New Line had given the sequel the greenlight while also announcing that Simon McQuiod, who helmed the first movie, would be back in the director’s chair once again.
And longtime fans of the fighting game who were not happy with the exclusion of franchise star Johnny Cage from the 2021 release will be happy to hear that the action movie star is going to be one of the characters introduced when the film eventually arrives on the big screen.
Bioshock - TBD
The sci-fi horror series Bioshock has always been a game franchise that would be well-suited to be adapted into a movie. A great setting with the underwater city of Rapture, a twist-heavy story, and those Big Daddies are just a few of the reasons that make a strong case for an adaptation.
Well, in August 2022, Netflix announced that Francis Lawrence would be directing the upcoming movie, which will be based on a script written by Michael Green, best known for scripting movies like Logan, Blade Runner 2049, and Jungle Cruise. When speaking with Collider in November 2022, Lawrence revealed that all of the outlining of the script had been completed and that Green was in the process of putting it all together.
God Of War - TBD
Just a few weeks after the latest title in the God of War franchise – Ragnarok – was released on PlayStation consoles, Amazon Studios ordered a live-action series based on the popular action-adventure game in December 2022, as reported by Variety. The upcoming Amazon original series will turn its focus to the 2018 soft-reboot of the property, which saw Kratos living in the Norse realm of Midgard after trying to escape his violent and heartbreaking past in ancient Greece.
Not long after the news broke, Amazon Studios’ Head of Television Vernon Sanders told Collider that the show would be “incredibly true to the source material,” while also being something that can be enjoyed by those who have yet to play the games.
Gears Of War - TBD
Gears of War, one of the most popular video game franchises on the Xbox family of consoles will soon get not one, but two adaptations on Netflix – a live-action movie and an animated TV series. In November 2022, Netflix announced that the story of Delta Squad, which is led by the disgraced sergeant Marcus Fenix, would be at the center of the upcoming adaptations, but didn’t provide too many specific details about either property.
Maybe, just maybe Dave Bautista will get his wish and be added to the Gears of War cast at some point.
Assassin's Creed - TBD
Over the course of the past decade-plus, the Assassin’s Creed video game series from Ubisoft has become one of the most popular and expansive franchises on the market, with installments set everywhere from Renaissance era Italy, ancient Egypt and Greece, and Norway during the time of the Vikings. Though the 2016 movie based on the games failed to capture the scope, scale, and fun of the source material, Ubisoft and Netflix have partnered up to give Assassin’s Creed another shot as a TV series.
At one point in time, Die Hard writer Jeb Stuart was attached as showrunner, but Collider revealed in January 2023 that Stuart had departed from the project.
Horizon - TBD
Another PlayStation exclusive franchise, Horizon, will be turned into a Netflix series at some point in the future, as IGN revealed in May 2022. Official details have been slim to none since the announcement last spring, but expect to hear more in the coming months about this exciting project.
Ghost Of Tsushima - TBD
In March 2021, Deadline revealed that John Wick director Chad Stahelski was in talks to bring the PlayStation exclusive Ghost of Tsushima to the big screen, which was remarkable considering the franchise launched the previous summer.
There are a lot of reasons to be excited about a Ghost of Tsushima movie, but Stahelski gave fans of the game even more reason to celebrate in November 2022 when he revealed to IGN that he was still working on the project, stating that he and his team had a “very good script” they were working on.
The Minecraft Movie - TBD
There has been talk of a Minecraft movie since at least 2014, at which point It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia co-creator Rob McElhenney was attached to direct and spearhead the adaptation of one of the most successful games of all time. In 2018, however, there was some bad news regarding the project when it was announced that McElhenney and Wonder Wonder scribe Jason Fuchs had left the project and that Warner Bros. was entertaining other ideas for the big-screen version of the open-world video game.
Originally slated for a May 2019 release, it was announced by EW that year that Warner Bros. was instead eyeing a March 2022 release, though Deadline reported in October 2020 that the film has been removed from the release calendar entirely. But the movie isn’t dead just yet, as Jason Momoa was added to the cast in April 2022, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Detective Pikachu 2 - TBD
Detective Pikachu is honestly one of the best video game adaptations to ever be released with the main reason being that instead of trying (and failing) to adapt a storyline from a specific game, it is set within the world of Pokémon. This element, combined with the touching father-son story at the center of the movie, makes Detective Pikachu 2 a no-brainer. In January 2019, Variety reported that Oren Uziel, who worked on the Sonic the Hedgehog script would be writing the Pokémon followup, but there haven’t been many updates since then.
The Detective Pikachu 2 situation became even murkier in March 2021 when Justice Smith, the star of the first installment, told Inverse he didn’t know if the movie was going to actually happen.
Five Nights At Freddy’s - TBD
The Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, with its story about being trapped in a demented version of Chuck E Cheese, is one of the most terrifying games in the past decade and so it was only a matter of time before a film adaptation was put into production. Word began to circulate around 2017 when it was teased that Jason Blum and his Blumhouse Productions would be adapting the property. In 2018, the project picked up steam and it looked like we weren’t far off from seeing a Five Nights at Freddy’s movie in the near future.
The latest update regarding Five Nights at Freddy’s came in late 2020 when Jason Blum said the production team was still ironing out the details of its complicated story.
Metal Gear Solid - TBD
The Metal Gear Solid movie is another video game adaptation that has long been in the works and highly anticipated by fans of the series started by Hideo Kojima more than 30 years ago. And while there have been rumors, starts and stops, and other issues over the years, the project picked up a lot of steam in late 2020 when it was announced that Oscar Isaac was cast as Solid Snake. And while we don’t know how cardboard boxes will play into the upcoming movie, they have to be there, right?
Fallout - TBD
Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, the team behind the HBO sci-fi series Westworld are teaming up once again for the Amazon Studios adaptation of Fallout, the long-running dystopian survival video game series that has a history going back to the 1990s. The games have primarily been set in the later years of the 21st Century and pick up decades after the world entered nuclear winter following a devastating global war. In February 2022, Deadline announced that Walton Goggins had been added to the show’s cast. Ella Purnell joined the following month.
These are all the video game movies and TV shows you can expect to see in 2023, 2024, and beyond. Remember, these releases can change with the drop of a controller, er hat, so make sure to check CinemaBlend’s list of 2023 movie premiere dates as well as the 2023 TV schedule for all the latest information.
