We wanted to get an update on the marriage of Hollywood and games and managed to do that with industry veterans Dmitri Johnson and Amanda Kruse.
Kruse is the head of Blumhouse’s video game publishing division at the well known horror film production studio. She was previously head film and television at Devolver Digital and also worked for six years in business development and publishing roles at Good Shepherd Entertainment. She also worked as a creative director at Lionsgate Games and served in a game adaptation role there as well.
Blumhouse has adapted the Five Nights at Freddy’s game series into two hit films and it’s working on a number of game-related projects now with the common theme around horror, which is an evergreen hot category in both games and movies.
Johnson is the cofounder of Story Kitchen alongside Mike Goldberg and he has been producing game adaptations into movies for years. He describes himself as the luckiest adult man-child on the planet right now.
“I’m trying to identify first things that make me feel something, and care enough and put enough fire in my belly that I want to go track it down and figure out a way to a gain their trust,” Johnson said. “We try to translate that into either a film series and honor that original piece of art that made me want to chase in the first place.”
A good example is the Sonic movie trilogy, as it helped kick off the successful trend of taking games to the wider mass culture audience of movies and TV. Games have a solid base of fans that movie executives love to see to support a movie launch. With Sonic the Hedgehog in 2020, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 2022 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in 2024, the films have generated more than $1.27 billion at the box office. They invited the core audience to come in but then expanded it to non-gamers.
“We grew up playing Sonic. We love Sonic, and and for me, it it it kind of like is an overall statement about Sega. Sonic was fast. Sonic had attitude. Mario did it, and it was all these things and great music that was why I fell in love with Sega,” Johnson said.
Since there wasn’t much of a backstory, the film teams had the freedom to create a narrative with an “orphan story” that was relatable and the larger goal was to capture the feeling and attitude of Sonic. Johnson is working with a number of projects like Life Is Strange.
“As a hardcore fan, I wear my black heart with pride. But every time a new thing develops with the show, I get a little dust in my eye seeing it come to life. But my mom can accidentally stumble upon [something like] this and be like, ‘What is this show?’ and then find out it’s based on a game after the fact,” Johnson said.
In the past, the issue that stopped game adaptations from succeeding was respect. Now there are directors who gerw up playing games that understand the game franchises and have a better idea of what fans want. And the collaboration now involves much tighter work than in the past, where game companies and their producers can have more impact on the show content.
“We have a more sophisticated relationship with Universal probably than most production companies do with their studio, so they’re happy to let us run with it,” Kruse said.
She noted that the trend can run in multiple directions. Blumhouse has a farming sim game called Grave Seasons that has an Agatha Christie murder mystery flair with dating.
Both remain concerned about the health of the games industry and film, particularly in the U.S., as the industry here faces more global competition. The deals still get executed in Hollywood, but the production has moved elsewhere.
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