30 Video Games Made into Movies (For Better or Worse)

Hitman (2007) Dir: Xavier Gens

When the Hitman film was first announced, Vin Diesel was attached to not only executive produce but to star in the film as well, playing the lead role of Agent 47. The casting was perfect. Diesel, like the titular character, didn’t have any hair on his head. Three years and zero films later, Diesel stepped away from the movie.

That led everyone to speculate on who would don the infamous black suit and red tie, with many feeling that the obvious choice for a bald, British, suit-wearing assassin was Jason Statham, who more or less played the same role in the Transporter films. Instead, the producers threw a curve ball and went with a bald and very American Timothy Olyphant.

Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, but he was more or less alone in his fondness for the film – at least among critics. Despite a 14% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the film quadrupled its budget.

Hitman: Agent 47 (2015) Dir: Aleksander Bach

Eight-ish years after the first Hitman movie was a flop, Hollywood decided to try again. Hitman: Agent 47 wasn’t a remake, but simply another adaptation of the video game franchise. Proving that money trumps acclaim, the producers hired Skip Woods – the man who wrote the first critically-smashed yet commercially-successful film – to pen the new film. It starred Rupert Friend of Homeland fame as the titular Agent 47.

The film went on to double its budget, earning $82.3 million over the $35 spent making it, but somehow managed to score even lower on Rotten Tomatoes than the 14% its predecessor netted. It managed a measly 8%, with critics accusing it of being hollow and dull, as well as guilty of product placement. Some also mentioned how the film even failed to clear the embarrassingly low bar set by the first film.