A number of Hollywood auteurs arepopular picks for video game adaptations. Movie buffs would love to play through Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist historical action or Edgar Wright’s spot-on genre riffs. But one name that doesn’t come up often is Wes Anderson. His films are cerebral tragicomedies, which don’t usually make for great video games, but Anderson has an unmistakable visual style, a wide range of colorful characters, and a universe full of rich, curious worlds to explore.
Max Fischer’s attempts to woo Miss Cross inRushmoreor Royal’s feeble, misguided bid to reconnect with his estranged family inThe Royal Tenenbaumswouldn’t easilytranslate to video game form, but some of Anderson’s later, more action-packed cinematic outings have more than enough suspenseful set pieces and vivid world-building to make a solid groundwork for video game adaptations.
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Anderson’s fourth movie,The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, was his first box office flop and first critical failure, although it’s since been re-evaluated as an underappreciated cult classic.Bill Murray starsas oceanographer Steve Zissou, an absurdist parody of Jacques Cousteau who steals his equipment from undersea labs, arms his entire crew with Glocks, and takes shortcuts through unprotected waters. This movie is crying out to be turned into a video game. It has a pirate attack sequence and an island rescue sequence, as well as plenty of undersea exploration.
The director’s first stop-motion animated feature, an adaptation of Roald Dahl’sFantastic Mr. Fox, would also make a terrific video game. In keeping with the “homemade heist” feel of Anderson’s brilliant debut featureBottle Rocket,Fantastic Mr. Foxis a family-friendly crime story. It could be described asHeatfor kids. Instead ofRobert De Niro robbing banks, it’s about a fox stealing livestock. Mr. Fox’s farm heists would make a really fun strategy game with obstacles like foxtraps and rabid guard dogs and gun-toting farmers.
Moonrise Kingdomis primarily a love story between two troublesome kids who feel like outcasts, but they have to run away to be together. Sam escapes from his Khaki Scout camp and Suzy runs away from home, then they meet in a meadow and trek into the woods to find a secluded place to set up camp. This journey would present all kinds of challenges in game form: following a map, canoeing down a river, rock climbing – not to mention evading the search party looking for them. Suzy’s parents, the island police, and Sam’s entire scout troop are all scouring the woods, trying to find them and split them up, soSam and Suzy have to keep moving. It could be a breezy, lighthearted take on a survival game. The stakes aren’t life-or-death, but the scouts are armed with deadly weapons and Suzy’s dad is furious.
Arguably the Anderson movie that’s best-suited to a video game adaptation is his most visually ambitious film to date,The Grand Budapest Hotel, set across several time periods with changing aspect ratios to delineate the historical setting. A video game version ofGrand Budapestwould essentially be a hotel concierge simulation game set in a fictional war-torn European country that quickly morphs into anUncharted-style action-adventure game with danger lurking around every turn. This movie has an art heist and an elaborate prison break and a ski chase that ends on the edge of a cliff, as well as fascist death squads waiting at every train station. In one particularly chilling sequence, a lawyer (Jeff Goldblum) is followed through a dark, empty museum by a sadistic hitman (Willem Dafoe) – this scene is terrifying enough from a third-person perspective, but playing through it in game form wouldgiveSilent Hilla run for its money. The movie culminates in a gunfight across the hotel, with the fight for the stolen painting taking place in the crossfire.
Worldbuilding is crucial to creating a memorable game. If a player is going to commit hours upon hours to a story, then the world in which it takes place needs to be fleshed-out and well-constructed. All of Anderson’s movies take place in a world of their own. Steve Zissou’s vessel, The Belafonte, is a decommissioned warship that he pimped out with a sauna.Fantastic Mr. Foxexplores the Fox family’s farmland society in so much detail that we even know how its real estate market works. The titular establishment inThe Grand Budapest Hotelhas a rich, decades-long history, and the movie takes place in the fictional nation of Zubrowka.
While lofty big-budget action movies likeInceptionandDjango Unchainedare commonly included onwish lists for video game adaptations, Wes Anderson’s movies never come up. But his movies are a lot more action-packed and vaster in scope than the general audience might expect from parodies of his style, and the freedom of the video game medium could give characters like Steve Zissou and M. Gustave even more depth than they had on the big screen.
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