I’m Baffled A Beloved Video Game Franchise With Over 200 Million Sales Doesn’t Have A Live-Action Movie After 38 Years

The Final Fantasy series is one of the most popular game franchises of all time, but somehow has avoided the classic Hollywood adaptation treatment for almost four decades now. The original Final Fantasy was released by Square in 1987, spawning an anthology series that would go on to take the world by storm.

Every numbered Final Fantasy game is more of a volume, not continuing the previous entry’s story but beginning a whole new chapter taking place in a different world. While some throughlines and concepts occasionally weave their way through multiple games in the franchise, for the most part, the strength of Final Fantasy lies in its variety and storytelling.

For a long time, it was understood that video game movies were cursed, with Hollywood seemingly being doomed to release a flop (or at best, a mildly entertaining disaster) when operating within the confines of a video game I.P. In recent years, however, the film industry has had much more success with video games, breaking this supposed curse wide open.

With how many active video game movies are in development in the present day and age, it’s a surprise that the Final Fantasy series has mostly not managed to breach the silver screen. Considering just how popular the franchise has become even outside its home market in Japan, a big-budget blockbuster adaptation seems ripe for filming.

Final Fantasy Has Released Animated Films, But Never A Live-Action Movie

A Movie Nearly Bankrupted SquareEnix

Aki Ross Floating in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Just because the series has yet to spawn a live-action film doesn’t mean that Final Fantasy doesn’t have its fair share of spin-off media. Because of the wonderful high-concept fantasy worlds the series tends to inhabit, Final Fantasy movies and TV shows have thus far been entirely animated.

The series has seen a number of spin-off anime seasons come and go, but franchise developer SquareEnix released their first feature-length film with Final Fantasy: Spirits Within. Thanks to its original story and unconvincing CGI animation, Final Fantasy: Spirits Within became one of the worst box office bombs of all time, a grave financial disappointment.

Luckily, the series has had more luck with animation since, thanks to the direct-to-DVD anime movies Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and Last Order: Final Fantasy VII, both of which took inspiration from one of the franchise’s most beloved entries. There was also the ’90s OVA, Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals, which acted as a direct sequel to the fifth game.

2016’s Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV is another tie-in movie to the series, also animated via pH๏τorealistic CGI.

In all that time, Final Fantasy has never dared to experiment with live-action media. The nature of the settings and fantastical plots the series navigates would make it difficult, but JRPGs like Final Fantasy are now more popular than ever, and modern video game movies can acquire quite impressive budgets.

How Close A Live-Action Final Fantasy Movie Has Come To Reality

Final Fantasy Has Come Close, But Yet So Far

Final Fantasy 15's Noctis closes his eyes as light hits his face.

Despite nearly being bankrupted by Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, SquareEnix has been publicly agreeable to the idea of a proper Final Fantasy movie. A live-action Final Fantasy film has never been publicly developed, but Sony was quietly brewing a series at one point, according to Variety.

Sony Pictures Television has apparently threw their hat into the ring to be the first to make a live-action adaptation of the series, collaborating with SquareEnix and Hivemind, the studio behind Netflix’s The Witcher series. Following suit, this would have been a television show based on the game rather than a movie, likely competing with The Last of Us and Fallout.

A movie may be a better fit for a live-action Final Fantasy project after all, with a larger budget able to handle the ambitious settings of the franchise.

Sadly, the idea wound up lying ᴅᴇᴀᴅ in the water after only a few years, according to Hivemind’s co-founder Dinesh Shamdasani’s admission on Twitter last year. Apparently, the scope and spectacle of the concepted series was simply too much for prospective buyers, with Amazon coming the closest to giving Sony and Hivemind what they would have needed.

Thus, a movie may be a better fit for a live-action Final Fantasy project after all, with a larger budget able to handle the ambitious settings of the franchise. Yet according to GameSpot, Final Fantasy producer Yoshinori Kitase hasn’t had any talks with Hollywood, though he’s aware of the franchise’s appeal to some in the film industry.

Which Final Fantasy Games Could Work As A Live-Action Movie?

Hollywood Could Find Inspiration In Surprising Places

Final Fantasy 7 Remake's Cloud takes cover from flames.

Because the Final Fantasy series is so vast and varied, determining which game a movie should adapt is an entire thought exercise in and of itself. The obvious answer would be to make a film version of the most popular entry in the series, Final Fantasy VII, which Kitase has observed to be a hit among many filmmakers.

Indeed, mᴀss appeal would certainly be on the side of a live-action movie that could detail the story of Cloud and Sepiroth, but Final Fantasy VII is far from the only option. The Sony series almost took place in the universe of Final Fantasy XIV, which broke the mold of the franchise by being a popular MMO still played by 30 million people to this day.

Because of the mᴀssive in-built fan base and near miss with live-action reconstruction, Final Fantasy XIV‘s already-developed world could be the best place for a live action movie to explore. But when it comes to sweetly and succinctly suiting the needs of a movie, one underrated entry in the franchise could make for a great movie.

Final Fantasy XV isn’t the most beloved game in the franchise, but its set-up of a bizarre modern fantasy dungeonpunk version of the American Southwest could make for an awesome road trip movie, laden with loveable and distinct characters fans already love. Perhaps this unorthodox approach could be the best way for Final Fantasy to finally break into the movies.

Would A Live-Action Final Fantasy Movie Actually Do Justice To The Games?

Perhaps The Idea Hasn’t Been Explored For A Reason

At the end of the day, the reasons for the Hivemind series’ cancellation might sum up everything about why Final Fantasy couldn’t work in live action. So many special effects and so much suspension of disbelief are needed for almost every Final Fantasy world that any pieces of spin-off media may as well just be animated.

On top of the high demands of production, the idea that the series is mainstream enough among general audiences (not just gamers) is still a bit laughable, making it a difficult pitch to studio execs. More than anything else, though, condensing the sprawling, mᴀssive games into two and a half hours might simply be too much effort for a Final Fantasy movie to be worth it.


Sources: GameSpot, Variety, Twitter

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