Hollywood has evolved over the years. We’ve seen IPs get picked up and adapted from novels to comic books. However, it wasn’t until recently that we saw a new boom. New movies and television series are getting made from video games. These incredible works of art are finally getting a chance to bask in the limelight under a different entertainment medium. While some of these projects are easily being picked up, it wasn’t always the case. In fact, one IP that was pitched to Hollywood was a Crash Bandicoot movie.
We wouldn’t be surprised to see more video game IPs get picked up and showcased to the masses via a new film or television series. More and more are getting adapted and finding a new surge of fandom. However, the current CEO of Sega of America, Shuji Utsumi, recently spoke about his movie attempt years ago.
Speaking to The Game Business, Shuji mentioned that at one point early in his career at Sony, he brought the Crash Bandicoot IP to Hollywood. They hoped that the IP was interesting enough to warrant a movie adaptation. However, at the time, it was unveiled that Hollywood’s view of the video game business was nothing more than a toy business.
When I started to get involved in the video game business, I picked up Crash Bandicoot and started asking some of the movie studios if they were interested in turning that property into a movie. But I was treated like… ‘hey, video games is like a toy business’. They didn’t really take it seriously.
Hollywood wasn’t ready to take video games seriously. That was then, and now we’re seeing a polar opposite view. In fact, Shuji knows just how well video games can do in the movie business now that he’s at Sega. After all, we saw a massive hit with the Sonic the Hedgehog films. Just like other franchises that are now highlighted in Hollywood, there’s usually a surge of interest in the video game franchise.
While Hollywood is now adapting these films and television series based on video games, it’s uncertain whether Crash Bandicoot would receive a similar treatment. Right now, it’s under the control of Microsoft. So it will ultimately depend on whether Microsoft is interested in pursuing a Crash Bandicoot movie.
