It seems were in the middle of a wave of new videogame movies, so now seems like a great time for Sega to announce a movie based on Shinobi. Sega announced that it would be partnering with Marc Platt Production, the producer behind Drive and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, to make a live-action adaptation of the Shinobi series.
Shinobi is certainly an odd choice for a movie, but there’s always potential. The Shinobi games have always been focused on gameplay, with the story being pretty simple. The story follows Joe Musashi as he works his way up to be the most powerful ninja, and then has to stop a crime syndicate named Zeed. That’s about it, and I would like to say that this movie better be super over-the-top. You got a Ninja that wears white and bright red, so already it’s throwing logic out of the window, so just have a scene of Joe fighting Godzilla.
Sega’s deal with Marc Platt also includes other projects based on classic games, including Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Crazy Taxi, and Virtua Fighter. These adaptations won’t all be films, as the deal also includes “digital projects.” This could be any number of things since all media nowadays is digital, but one of these projects will probably be a web-series. This must be very strange for people who like these video games, because we all know how well movie adaptations of videogames go. On the bright side, these arcade games don’t have much of a plot so they can take a lot of liberties and hopefully make a good movie. After all, Marc Platt did produce Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which was the best videogame movie that’s not based on an actual game.
Seems to be a lot of videogame movies coming out for some reason. Along with this deal, Sega also has a deal with Sony to make a live-action/animated Sonic the Hedgehog movie, which is pointless because the SyFy channel already made one. Meanwhile, Rachet and Clank came 7th place in the box office and failed to impress critics. Also, the Angry Birds and Warcraft films are still about 7 years too late, oh and Rampage movie with Dwayne Johnson is also a thing.