[Jeritron]

Superhero movies made the jump thanks to two things. One was special effects allowing for them to be possible.
Another was the first Tim Burton Batman, allowing them to be darker and more "serious."
They came a long way from there, but it was a huge breakthrough at the time.

Video game movies have the effects at their disposal to be realized on film. That's not the problem.
The problem is they need a Batman, or Xmen like breakthrough to start the trend. What franchise has that potential both in terms of popularity and depth of story?
I honestly don't know.
This leads back to my argument that games can never compare or easily transform to movies because they lack the same storytelling priorities. Comics are about telling stories visually, and so are movies. Key word:telling.
Video games are about involving the "viewer" as a player. They're not designed, at least fully, to be thematic and deep. The storyline can be strong, but at the end of the day it revolves around facilitating interesting interactive situations, and exciting things to shoot or race from. You are not being fully told the story. There's less authorship. The player takes control at some point.

It's not the same.


Maybe something like Halo could really break the glass ceiling, if the entire premise was gutted and written for the screen and injected with some thematic elements. It has to be something of that cultural level, helmed by someone like Peter Jackson or James Cameron. Nothing less will suffice. I don't see how anyone can expect a second rate franchise, directed by a second rate director to get over on any meaningful level.
It HAS to be huge, and handled seriously by someone who is concerned with making the best possible movie with the basic source material. If they try to follow it too closely or play to fanboys, it's gonna be a video game cinematic in movie form and that has sucked.

The problem with video game movies is that they're made like video games. It's not about characters and themes.