Expansion Pack
Looking outside the U.S. paints a very different picture. In fact, the benevolence of overseas cinemagoers is seemingly sustaining video game movies (the likes of Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Need for Speed and Prince of Persia accumulated over 70 percent of their gross from the international box office).
Any armchair analyst (myself included) could relate this trend to the parallel rise of the gaming industry in commercially developing regions, such as Russia and Latin America. However, the statistics do not overshadow the obvious; the substance is in the style. Stylistically speaking, these films offer the type of big budget, action-adventure-driven spectacle that foreign audiences have come to expect from Hollywood, which is exactly the type of film they are turning up in their droves to see.
Among the most lucrative regions in the world for Hollywood productions is China. Today, China is single-handedly salvaging domestic bombs and changing what can viably be considered a hit movie. Meanwhile, video game movies have thrived in the region despite the fact that console gaming was banned in the country up until this year – again disputing any claim to a correlation between the rise in gaming and video game adaptations abroad.
Tellingly, the aforementioned Need for Speed (which – to state the obvious – was met with a tepid response at home) almost cracked the top 20 list of highest grossing films of 2014 in China.
