Hollywood Hopes There's Still Money in Video Game-Themed Movies

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Three years ago,

took a major gamble and poured

into a new movie franchise. Unlike

, this franchise was not based on a book. Unlike

, it was not based on an old radio show. Disney poured its hard-earned money into

, a moderately successful video game franchise from Ubisoft. While this was not Disney's worst decision, it was far from the best.

earned $90 million locally -- less than half the reported budget. The film earned $335 million worldwide, but if movie theaters took half of that revenue, Disney would have still been left with an unprofitable film. Despite these and other box office failures, Hollywood studios are slowly coming back to video games. This week

that it is developing a film based on one of its own video game franchises,

. No specifics were revealed, but Mike de Luca and Dana Brunetti (who produced

and the upcoming

adaptation) are rumored to be attached to the project.

was likely inspired by the creation of the

movie, which was rumored for years but was not approved until

repeatedly reminded Hollywood that car chase and street racing films are popular.

is based on the

video game of the same name and will be distributed by Disney's Touchtone Pictures. Independent filmmakers are in the process of filming a live-action Web series that's based on Capcom's

series. The series attracted

on Kickstarter but was ultimately funded by private backers.

is not the only major game property coming to online TV. In May

announced that Steven Spielberg will produce a television series based on its

franchise. The series is expected to air

.

After being disappointed with

results, Ubisoft decided to team with a smaller company to produce its next film,

. Ubisoft intends to

over this movie, which is slated for release during the summer of 2015. While Hollywood has attempted to cash in on video games before, this is the first time that the industry (or at the very least those who make the actual games) seem to be taking these projects seriously. Sony, for example, plans to produce

through its own movie studio. That could go a long way in improving the quality of the film -- and increase the likelihood that moviegoers won't be

.