DEVIL MAY CRY Showrunner Calls Out Video Game Adaptation Boom: “Most of This Stuff Isn’t Going to Work”
Video game film adaptations are popping up a lot right now. Studios are racing to turn beloved franchises into movies and TV shows, hoping to land the next massive hit.
But while a few projects have actually delivered, plenty of others have struggled to capture what made the games special in the first place, and if you ask Adi Shankar, the guy behind Netflix’s Devil May Cry, most of what’s being announced today might not even make it to the finish line… and if it does, it might not be great.
We’ve seen the highs and lows already. For every blockbuster success like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, there are projects that don’t quite land with fans, like the live-action Yakuza series on Prime Video or Return to Silent Hill. Still, that hasn’t slowed anything down.
The industry is in full-on gold rush mode, with titles like Helldivers, Duke Nukem, It Takes Two, Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Metal Gear Solid all being lined up for adaptation. Then we’ve got Mortal Kombat, which was just released, along with Street Fighter and Resident Evil coming.
According to analyst Ricardo Parsons, “Video game adaptations have been on the rise since the second half of 2023, with no fewer than 25 being announced in each half-year since.”
Shankar, though, isn’t buying into the hype. Speaking candidly, he explained why he thinks most of these projects won’t even get made:
"I just don't think most of these things are going to come to fruition, because there's so many stakeholders. It's easy to [say] we're gonna adapt this game.
“But that's nothing new. There have been announcements of comic book movies, video game movies and TV shows. That's been part of the media cycle since the '90s, for sure."
He also pushed back on the idea that we’re headed toward a future packed with dozens of adaptations every year:
"We're not going to get to a point where 50 a year are going to be made. They're announcing a lot… If we're talking straight adaptations – like we're treating this video game as a novel – [and] we have 50 of those a year, at that point the audience is going to be really excited about original stuff."
Even the projects that do survive development aren’t safe in his eyes. Shankar believes the core issue comes down to who’s actually in control of these franchises:
"I think inevitably, most video game adaptations that come out will be cringe, because when you look at the video games that are massively successful, they're not really run by the people that made the games. They're run by corporations who have now assigned brand managers to manage them, right?"
He went dig into how franchises evolve once they become massive brands: "It's also a brand. At that point,when a video game gets treated like a brand that long, it becomes a logo.
“You're slapping the logo onto things [and] you've got countless spin offs and mobile games and whatnot… Well, now everything's a brand, man. At that point, you're like, well, where's the Captain Crunch movie?"
It’s a pretty blunt take, but it’s hard to ignore. A lot of adaptations do feel like they’re chasing recognition rather than storytelling.
That said, Shankar is trying to avoid those same pitfalls with Devil May Cry. Instead of doing a beat-for-beat retelling, the series leans into the vibe and attitude of the games while carving out its own identity. Devil May Cry Season 2 is set to bring Dante face-to-face with his brother Vergil, setting up a tense and emotional clash that fans have been waiting for.
Devil May Cry Season 2 hits Netflix on May 12.
Source: GamesRadar+