[Global Times Comprehensive Report] If we talk about one of the most popular stand-alone games in the world right now, it is certainly the Chinese 3A game masterpiece "Black Myth: Wukong". At the Wave Movie Week that opened last week, Huayi Brothers CEO Wang Zhonglei revealed tha

[Global Times Comprehensive Report] If we say that one of the most popular stand-alone games in the world at the moment, it is certainly the Chinese 3A game masterpiece "Black Myth: Wukong". At the Wave Movie Week that opened last week, Huayi Brothers CEO Wang Zhonglei revealed that he had discussed adaptation with the "Black Myth: Wukong" game team, including movies, short plays, and Chinese dramas. However, Wang Zhonglei also admitted that there are not many successful cases of game adaptations into movies around the world. From "Warcraft" to " Onmyoji ", the experiences have been different, and the market is obvious to all. If " black myth · Wukong" really starts to be adapted into a film and television, it will inevitably encounter many difficulties, but it is also a new attempt to adapt a domestic high-quality game.

Data map: Hangzhou, Sony flagship store, Black Myth Wukong PS5 experience area. (Visual China)

As the "head IP" in ancient Chinese myths and legends, "Journey to the West" has been adapted into film and television animations many times. In the game "Black Myth: Wukong", most of the characters already exist in the original "Journey to the West", but their identities and positions have been disrupted and reorganized. This kind of adaptation is placed on a game positioned as a "derivative sequel", and players who pursue a sense of experience readily accept it; but if it is placed in theaters and TV, it will have to face a wider audience's aesthetics. With the recent popularity of "Black Myth: Wukong", some fans of Journey to the West have compared the game with the characters in the TV series. Some people believe that the game is a "game-based second creation" of the latter. If it is in turn used in the film and television It seems to have become another "Journey to the West Side Story". If it is really to be put on the screen, the main creators need to be more enriched and in-depth in character creation, dialogue and psychological description; at the same time, the plot structure also needs to be rearranged and made choices, and a complete story must be "narrated" through performance and editing. Only in this way can stories truly break the circle and impress a wider audience.

Film and television adaptations of popular games are not easy. Even in Hollywood, which has a mature business model, the game adaptation movies produced in recent years have had mixed success: there are blockbusters such as "Tomb Raider" and "Super Mario Bros. Movie"; There were also the less successful "Dead and Alive" and "Marcus Payne." This summer's "Borderland" suffered a disastrous failure at the box office and word of mouth, even though it featured big-name stars like Cate Blanchett and Jack Black. Domestically, the adaptation of "Legend of Sword and Fairy" was relatively successful, while the film and television adaptation of "Xuanyuan Sword" was not of a high standard. "Zhengtu", which was said to have cost 300 million yuan to produce, lost all its money. In addition, "Warcraft", which was invested by the Chinese side, did not perform well at the box office in North America, but was successful in China, which shows that Chinese players have huge consumption potential; and "Order of the Samurai God" and "Qing Ya Ji" adapted from "Onmyoji" respectively They received 270 million yuan and 450 million yuan at the box office, but the reputation of the two movies was not high, especially among senior players who did not approve of the adaptation.

It can be foreseen that if "Black Myth: Wukong" is to be adapted into a film and television, it will not only have to face those film and television audiences who are familiar with the story of "Journey to the West", but also consider senior game players - this double difficulty is also The biggest challenge for “game-gai” works. If the balance can be in place, "Black Myth: Wukong" may become a milestone IP for Chinese A-level games/movies.(Luc)