Games to movies: Not proven winners

[Photo provided to China Daily]

But the 110-minute feature has seen a mediocre performance at the box office, grossing merely 26.5 million yuan in six days.

The genre of games-adapted films began with the 1993 American movie Super Mario Bros, followed by franchises like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil in the 2000s.

But most of these movies flopped.

A turning point emerged last year. The huge box-office success of The Angry Birds Movie and Warcraft, respectively released in China in May and June, revived confidence in the genre, igniting hopes that the movie and game sectors could work together successfully.

But the recently-released three movies have killed those hopes.

Commenting on the performance of the three films, Jiang Yong, a Beijing-based industry watcher, says that despite the huge fan base of the games, their innate characteristics make them unsuitable for the big screen.