"Silent Hill" Scares Up First Place at Box Office

Sony Pictures' "Silent Hill" movie, based on Konami Digital Entertainment's best-selling horror franchise, made a killing at the box office over the weekend with $20.2 million. The film, which had no A-list stars, beat out "The Sentinel," which boasted Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland and Eva Langora. On the game front, "Silent Hill" beat out the opening weekend gross of Universal Pictures' "Doom," based on the id Software first-person shooter. That film, which grossed $15.5 million in its opening weekend, cost a reported $70 million to make. "Silent Hill" had a reported budget of $50 million, and has a good shot at making back its money through international distribution before DVD sales kick in. "Silent Hill" is popular around the world and has rabid fans in every country.

One lesson that could be learned from "Silent Hill's" soft launch is that movie critics are not the intended audience for videogame movies. I've been to junkets before where the clueless TV press have actually called videogames "TV games," a term I've never even heard used before. These critics, and most of the newspaper critics, are older people who are not part of the videogame generation. Having negative reviews from people who don't understand the source material doesn't help anything, especially for a film like "Silent Hill," which director Christophe Gans told me was made for the gamers.

Universal Pictures treated "Doom" as it would any big action movie. The Rock did the movie junket and the press tours, but the reviews were all negative. And the movie was a big disappointment for gamers. Sony has had recent success skipping press previews for films that aren't aimed at critics and target a younger audience. While most gamers are going to go see what they want without reading reviews, not screening the movie for the older press isn't a bad idea. In about a decade, an entire generation of writers will have taken the post of the mostly-older crowd that currently dominates the movie critic position. Once this happens, game movies can be screened to all. Until then, there are too many people who just don't get games to begin with.

"Silent Hill's" Gans is already thinking about a sequel to the film, which he said would continue to follow the journey of this film's character. Screenwriter Roger Avary ("Pulp Fiction"), who just signed on to write and direct a big screen version of Atari's "Driver" for Rogue Pictures, told me he'd like a "Silent Hill" sequel to start over with a new cast and story. The success of this film bodes well for Avary's "Driver," which is a franchise that has been revived recently with "Driver: Parallel Lines," a game Avary was playing through when I spoke with him.

There are a few points that are important when looking at the success of "Silent Hill." First, the writer and director of the film are huge gamers. They spent months playing the game in Paris and sharing stories about their experiences in the world. Second, these filmmakers respect the source material and are fans of the game creators. This is important when adapting a game to film, since many Hollywood producers decide they know best when it comes to a game. They usually don't know best, and that's why the game movies fail more often then they succeed. The last thing that "Silent Hill" showed is that gamers will flock to theaters to see a good adaptation of their favorite game. Despite bad game films like "Doom" and "BloodRayne," "Silent Hill" succeeded. That's good news for other Hollywood producers who follow "Silent Hill's" formula.