The video game movie is a risky gamble.
When done right, as was the case with last year's Detective Pikachu with its inventive, tongue-in-cheek approach to its source material aided by adorable character design and the always-welcome Ryan Reynolds lending his supremely sarcastic vocal talents to the title character, there's oodles of money to be made and film franchises waiting to be born.
And when it goes the other way, well, look no further than the first-ever film adaptation of a beloved video game series, 1993's Super Mario Bros. Or better yet, don't. No one needs to put themselves through that.
The latest beloved property to transition out of the arcade and onto the big screen is Sonic the Hedgehog, the long-gestating adaptation of the beloved platformer video game series from Sega. In theaters now, the film features Ben Schwartz as the voice of the blue anthropomorphic hedgehog and Jim Carrey as his nemesis, the evil Dr. Robotnik.
The film's already overcome the hurdle that was the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the first trailer back in April 2019, with fans put off by Sonic's overly humanoid appearance, forcing a delayed release so director Jeff Fowler could tinker with the design of the beloved character. While the jury's still out on whether he got it right enough to lure fans of the franchise to the theater, let's take a look at all the video game movies that have come before it and see who tops the high score board.
Sonic the Hedgehog is in theaters now.