It’s not hard to guess what moves the so-called big actors of the series. culture industryA social paradigm, first theorized by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, is used to read multinational corporations, to describe all these organisms operating in a region where art and product constantly mix and merge.
The concept may seem complicated, but a practical example is enough to dispel any doubt: since its origins, Disney has produced great feature films that are moving, entertaining, surprising, in short, capable of producing art and culture. But at the same time, we’re talking about a company, exactly an industry, that only needs to look at turnover in order to survive. As we said, the culture industry.
Admittedly, the example is far from malicious, given that in the last century first the cinema, then the television, has dictated the investment agenda of multinational corporations that have increasingly done nothing but swallow each other up. expanding their business and growing their holdings.
At the end of the industrial revolution, in the middle of the nineteenth century; After this beautiful experiment of the Lumière brothers, which will create a brand new medium half a century later, one of the most valuable assets in this sense, library, brands, brands more cross-media available across multiple industries spanning all means of communication.
It’s all a library question
In terms of cross-media proto-brands, flying over the close connection between novels and films that have emerged since the dawn of cinema, newborn television giants Realizing that they can’t just survive on variety, award-winning quizzes and low-cost and ambitious productions, Warner Bros. and MGM, they started a cinema process by eyeing the cinema and their rich catalogs. Beginning in the second half of the 1950s, acquisitions and mergers led to the creation of integrated, vertical multinational companies with turnover in the most diverse fields. An example? Our beloved Sony, which produces home appliances just to see video recorders, acquired Columbia Pictures in 1989 before finding another outlet in the world of video games with the first PlayStation in the mid-90s.
In short, the culture industries are part of this gigantic business, and in short, it is not surprising that new cultural actors like the ones mentioned above are emerging. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendois attracting more and more attention from industries such as cinema and television, which are more hungry than ever before for brands with easy appeal that may already have a large fan base. Also, the case astonishment This is pretty self explanatory.
Intellectual property owners on the one hand, and those with the knowledge and tools to create new stories to be projected on the other, find themselves more and more halfway through. new paying audiencetwenty-thirty-year-old legions clearly grew up on bread and video games.
From old Street Fighter with the always stoned Jean-Claude Van Damme, to Christopher Lambert’s Mortal Kombat, in unlikely costumes, 1993 Super Mario Bros. more of a trace now; Experiments, if not abortion, are children of an age when video game plots were still primitive and filmmakers and directors had little or no knowledge of the source material.
Today, work is done under the supervision and guidance of one person. Shigeru Miyamoto who is smiling, cheerily announcing the trailer for Illumination’s Super Mario; following instructions and in close collaboration with Neil Druckmann in the realization of The Last of Us TV series; entrusting the lead role to a Harry Cavill, whose physique may not be perfect, but who is nerdy enough to know and appreciate The Witcher.
From sequels to cinematic universes
It is not simply a matter of respect for the source material, because by changing the medium of reference a certain interpretation can and should be allowed. The audio-visual industry is slowly realizing that even in the face of a new generation of screenwriters and directors, as we’ve mentioned, the name of great appeal is not enough. We need a project, attention to detail, special work. Clearly, the oversight of those who originally designed these brands is a piece that has often been missing from the equation in the past, but is not at all obvious even today.
Like mistakes and fears, Netflix series on Resident Evil, there are and they will do more; but it seems clear today, after comics, that video games are the main source of new creativity that appeals to an audience that is only about to dominate over the next few years, above all in terms of purchasing power. While Sony is opening the film division devoted to video games, Nintendo is increasingly assessing the cross-media potential of historical epics, Microsoft is cautiously taking its first steps with the Halo TV series, those who have been making movies for years, story-making in their DNA, looking more and more often at video games, even when it comes to doing something that sums them up like this. Wreck Ralph and Ready Player One.
we must wait for the rise video game cinematic universesIs it in line with what has been achieved with Marvel? What was done with the superheroes of House of Ideas was made possible after a long evolution of narrative techniques that allowed stories and comics to suggest a certain type of plot, theme, psychological insight suitable for a multitude of potentials. . audience. Only in the last few years has it become something akin to video games, whose appeal to neat cinematographic techniques, intermediate videos, makes the connection between the two media even more direct and clear.
If the second seasons and sequels are already on the calendar, the creation of something larger is difficult to achieve right now and on the horizon, because the investments that will be needed include far-reaching plans that currently seem unattainable. Unlike Marvel and DC’s superheroes, not comprehensive enough video game universes, where it is possible to include several heroes living in a common creative space. Apart from Riot with League of Legends, which seems to be slowly moving down that path, in other contexts it’s more difficult to identify enough reference figures to support custom products unless we’ve ventured into possible spin-offs or designs. with a different slant, as in the last Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
However, the present and future of video games between movies and TV series looks more promising and full of opportunities than ever before, even without major co-universes. New directors and producers know the source material, and video games have become fertile ground for cross-media-ready stories.
In short, we are faced with the first reality. The golden age of video games on the big and small screensome meager perfection, after several years of work characterized by many failures such as Christophe Gans’ Silent Hill and Uwe Boll’s feature film series (which if you’re a trash lover, you have to rush to save it).
Ideas are there, there are investments. The Last of Us from the Pascal-Ramsey duo and Super Mario from the combination of Pratt-Black are products called to give important signals in this sense. We long-time players can’t wait.
Source: Multiplayer
