The theatrical success of Sonic the Hedgehog and its now released sequel seem to be breaking the cursed streak of video game movies. The Blue Blur and his friends are due to have more live action adventures ahead of them, but Sonic as a character has a gaming history that goes far beyond fighting Dr. Robotnik and making a variety of animal friends.
Recently, director Jeff Fowler spoke about how he’d be all in to direct a film adaptation of Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. The acclaimed fighting game franchise has brought characters from a multitude of video game franchises since 1999 and garnered massive critical and commercial reception. (Sonic himself joined the roster in 2008’s Smash Bros. Brawl.) “Nothing would make me happier than to just throw all the characters into a battle royale,” said Fowler. “Getting Mario and Sonic in the ring, I mean everyone would be kinda dying for that, right? That’s just classic.” Of course, the big thing holding a Smash Bros. adaptation from seeing the light of day is the licensing issue. Beyond Nintendo and Sega, the franchise has drawn in characters from Bandai Namco’s Tekken, Capcom’s Street Fighter and Mega Man franchises, and Square Enix’s Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. There’d have to be some legal work done before such a project gets off the ground, but if it ever did happen, Fowler would be game to do it.
With crossovers being all the rage these days — not just for films, but also for games and TV — it feels likely that Super Smash Bros. will receive some kind of jump to expanded media in the near future. Having a fairly large and eclectic cast on hand feels like a solid enough setup to build a film franchise or TV series around, as Mortal Kombat has shown us with its two live-action films. (Who wouldn’t want to watch Toon Link get his head stomped in by Steve from Minecraft for a few hours?) What’ll be interesting to see is how that’ll take shape, given the video game adaptation boom has a fairly solid split between live action and animation at the moment.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is in theatres now. Let us know in the comments below how (or if) you think an adaptation of Super Smash Bros. would work.
[via ComicBook]
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