Proving that even your grandparents now know what video games are, Wreck-It Ralph was a happy surprise hit for Disney earlier this fall. Nabbing a healthy $202,184,813 box office take, the film not only got asses in seats, it also gave the studio its best-reviewed non-Pixar film in years and confirms the company's power as a producer of genre-based popular culture. Obviously, that makes a sequel as inevitable as death, taxes, and launch-day DLC. more »
Everyone is either looking forward to Wreck-It Ralph or still refers to video games as “those beeping boximacallits.” There are no other options. Gaming movies have a bad reputation, which is weird, because, despite what you may have heard and read, they have yet to materialize. We’ve seen dozens of action movies that share the titles of video games and little else, and run from reprehensible to ridiculously profitable — sometimes in the same series. We've also watched feature-length advertisements for video games that we've paid to see in hopes that there might be a movie in there somewhere. Case in point: Universal Pictures’ The Wizard. But that may be about to change. Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph could be the first true gaming movie — the first of a genre that could some day stand alongside war, horror and gangster movie genres. more »
