Reflecting on games of movies and movies of games, as we do, we’ve become mystified as to why putting the two together only ever seems to work in one direction. Let’s have a look at the facts.

Games spawned by movies have a shaky reputation, but every now and then you’ll get a winner. The stultifying From Russia With Love on the PlayStation 2, for example, “featured” Natasha Bedingfield as well as hours spent running on the spot because you couldn’t jump a flowerbed.

On the plus side, the Tron arcade game gave us many happy hours in our distant youth, while Spider-Man on the PS2 wasn’t world-changing but it was certainly fun. A mixed verdict for games-of-the-movies.

Movies spawned by games is where we really hit rock bottom. Try as we might we couldn’t think of a single good film that had started life as a game. Let’s look at the roll of shame.

Super Mario Bros (which Bob Hoskins said was the worst film he’d ever made). Tomb Raider. Street Fighter. Resident Evil. Mortal Kombat. Final Fantasy. Hitman. Tekken: The Motion Picture (we’re not making this up).

Stinkers, every one. Thank goodness our screenplay for Scrabulous, the Movie is nearly finished…

(Image: from INTVGene’s flickr stream)