Why is the Resident Evil franchise doing what Warcraft and AC can't? - Assassin's Creed (2016) Discussion

[–] byzantiumthrace 8 years ago

The much lower budgets on the Resident Evil movies seem to make them less risky propositions than video game-based movies with high budgets. Video game-based movies have not yet grossed above a certain level, and the costs of the budgets do not seem to be proportional to the increase in gross income. Since all video game-based movies have low critic receptions, that by itself cannot prohibit sequels.

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[–] byzantiumthrace 8 years ago

Another thing to take into account is how much these various video game-based movies are acting as advertising for their respective game series. It's unclear whether any movies have helped sell games or books much, but that is an objective of Ubisoft and probably some of the other companies.

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[–] irvintang 8 years ago

Resident evil went with original stories and only the general settings are based on the game, which gives the writer more freedom to weave a good story.

In addition, AC essentially need to tell 2 stories in one movie. This is not impossible, look at cloud atlas, it told multiple stories from multiple timelines that had almost nothing to do with each other, yet it does to perfection. It just takes alot of skills and love from both the writers, director and actors to pull it off.

I feel AC would've been better off at a longer length or concentrate more on one part of the story rather than split it in 2. The story and character in the animus was mostly forgettable and lack personality, almost like they're just there for the action. A farcry from how memorable Ezio was from AC2 game.

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[–] goonies383 8 years ago

Resident Evil isn't particularly successful. They range between 21% and 34% on RT and a domestic box office between 40-60 million. The two things saving it one is a relatively modest budget and two is what save all video game movies international box office.

Think of Warcraft $47 Million domestic, $433 Million worldwide.

Assassin's Creed has a good chance of being saved by international box office as well.

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[–] AllGot 8 years ago

I think RE's universe isn't as vast as A. Creed's or Warcraft's, so it's easier to adapt it. Budget for the franchise's films was also much shorter, quite below 100M, so box office didn't have to be very high to allow them to break even.

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[–] DrNarud 8 years ago

Another factor that you're forgetting is that the Resident Evil movies managed to gain an audience outside of the original game's fanbase, which most other video game movies have failed to do. This was done initially through DVD sales, not just box office numbers and the Resident Evil series continues to make most of it's money in the home video market, so the box office numbers are actually misleading. That's why each new instalment keeps making money, not just because the production budget is low.

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[–] AllGot 8 years ago

True about the film attracting people who aren't gamers. Good point!

If you check box office, basically all films had decent results. The low budget helped them. Home video sales just added even more money.

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[–] gargamel-8 8 years ago

You can see the RE movies without ever having played the games and still get a decent story out of it.

AC and the warcraft movie sucks because they dont really have a story or characters you care about unless you love the characters because of the games. Both movies are incredibly shallow with characters that have no depth and no reason for what they do. Diehard fans of the games cant see this because they cant separate the movie from the games.

It dont help that the animus and the DNA memory thing is incredibly stupid. It might work better in the game but it dont work in the movie. The random "flashbacks" from the middle ages just felt like random scenes that didnt fit together to make a story.

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[–] monstermayhem32 8 years ago

The resident evil movies though repetitive at least are entertaining.

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[–] MedievalOrc 8 years ago

Stop spewing crap out of your butthole please.

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[–] skankhunt88 8 years ago

A simple story line for people to get into Zombie Apocalypse and low budgets.

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[–] Amethyst-El 8 years ago

I think it's Mila 
Don't know why but I just love seeing her as Alice, she is just a very cool character. It's like Kate Beckinsale's Selene, also a very lovable cool character. Maybe it's the girl power LOL There are just not too many strong female characters out there.

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[–] dalbrech 8 years ago

Because they keep the budgets low on the RE movies.
It is not that the RE movies are huge hits...they are not....but the budgets are low enough so even though the films only do OK at the box office they turn a good profit for the studio.
I also think the producers are careful to make the acessable to viewers who might not be fans of the video game....failing to do that was the big mistake that Warcraft and AC made. They tried to satisfy the game fanbase by working TOO MUCH Of the "Lore" into a single movie,confusing those not familiar with the game background. The RE movie producers are careful not to do that.

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[–] DrNarud 8 years ago

But if they change too much of the lore of the games for a general audience, then there's also the danger that the movie would end up having little to resemblance to the game at all. I mean, when Sam Reimi was still attached as director for Warcraft, before Duncan Jones became involved, they wanted to make the orcs the standard bad guys just like LotR which means that it would have nothing in common with the games at all. So you need to get that balance right.

Also, I believe that Warcraft also managed to attract people who were not gamers just like Resident Evil did as well, because I personally know non-gamers who liked it. It's just that it wasn't enough to make back it's budget because it was too expensive to make, if the budget were a bit lower that would of made it profitable.

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[–] Dr_Saf_Wartofsky 8 years ago

There are just not too many strong female characters out there.

Are you kidding me? Look at last year's WW grosses, and you'll see that at least 2/3 of the top ten have a badass female character on it.

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[–] shockwavepulsar00 8 years ago

Because they are low budget films and have Milla Jovovich. Thats pretty much it.

They are terrible films that have decent action sequences. Most people loved Milla in the Fifth Element, so that nostalgia is what bring them to see the film everytime a new one is out. Then you have to add in the fact it does well overseas.

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[–] Dr_Saf_Wartofsky 8 years ago

RE are targeted for teenagers, and most teenagers haven't seen Fifth Element. Maybe the ones when the first movies came out did, but not the current teenagers.

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[–] shockwavepulsar00 8 years ago

I don't think you are giving teenagers enough credit."Leeloo Dallas....Multipass" is a pretty well known quote. Most teens today were born in 2000, so at that point the movie was only 3 years old.

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[–] Dr_Saf_Wartofsky 8 years ago

Exactly, the movie was not released on their lifetime, not even in their childhood... probably teenagers interested in films will know, but I think the average teen won't.

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[–] wulfthar 8 years ago

They have the Milla factor and the first movie was indeed pretty good, at the beginning they wanted Romero but he was making it too political, but still the final result was above anything from a game I've seen.

The he slowly downfell but still people like the first one and they like to see Milla with big guns and scarce clothing doing cool stunts.

Juliet Parrish: You can't win a war if you're extinct!

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