INTRODUCTION
Playing to Win: Hollywood's Gaming IP and Franchise Strategy Guide / 2025
Leveraging intellectual property effectively is a top priority for studios looking to build durable franchises for both film and television. Which is why it’s important to shine the spotlight in this report on the success Hollywood has been having in recent years in the video game space. Just look at the entertainment landscape right now, as A Minecraft Movie stunned the industry by becoming a global blockbuster and The Last of Us returned to streaming every bit the watercooler-worthy TV series it was in its first season. Keep in mind it wasn’t always this way; Hollywood history is littered with failed attempts to convert the fan engagement earned in the videogame sector to the big screen in particular. That’s why a report like this one illuminating how videogame IP has become valuable narrative entertainment is crucial to understanding the best practices behind successful franchise management. Andrew Wallenstein Chief Media Analyst, Luminate
ABOUT
LUMINATE
Luminate is the entertainment industry’s most trusted data partner, unleashing access to the most essential, objective, and trustworthy information across music, film and television, with data compiled from hundreds of verified sources. Today, the company maintains its more than 30-year legacy of accurate storytelling by powering the iconic Billboard music charts, while also acting as the premiere database for the television and film industries, which includes fueling Variety’s Streaming Originals Charts. Working closely with record labels, artists, studios, production companies, networks, tech companies, and more, Luminate offers the most valued source of comprehensive, independent, and foundational entertainment data that drives industry forward. Luminate is an independently operated company and a subsidiary of PME TopCo., a joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and Eldridge.
Playing to Win: Hollywood's Gaming IP and Franchise Strategy Guide / 2025
IN THIS . REPORT
While Hollywood’s embrace of gaming IP has been on the rise since 2020, its franchises have a long way to go before competing with the volume of franchises the superhero genre has delivered to film and TV, principally from Marvel and DC Comics. Star Wars would be the only non-superhero property able to compete on either a volume or box office revenue basis.
This is the first year since 2021 to have as many theatrical films based on gaming IP as series, demonstrating a shift toward utilizing the box office to better profit off licensed IP.
2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine added another billion-dollar hit for Marvel, but newer DCEU entries underperformed, necessitating a franchise-wide reboot. Upcoming Star Wars films took longer than expected to materialize, and neither Jurassic World nor Avatar are annual franchises.
ip volume
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ADAPTATIONS OF GAMING IP
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LICENSED IP IN GAMES
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GAMING IP ON STREAMING
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FRANCHISE BUDGETS
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LIVESTREAMING
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IP VOLUME
ADAPTATIONS OF GAMING IP
Hollywood Adaptations of Gaming IP
Both released and currently scheduled projects
TRANSMEDIA PLAYERS
Amount of Domestic Film & TV Projects, by Franchise
Data spans Jan. 1, 2010-May 1, 2025
Number of Billion-Dollar Box Office Films, by Franchise
Upcoming Film & TV Adaptations of Gaming IP
Limited to scheduled releases and projects in active production with distribution
HOLLYWOOD IN GAMING
TOP GAMING IP
Top Film Adaptations of Gaming IP at Global Box Office
Episodic Budgets for TV Adaptations of Gaming IP
LICENSED IP IN GAMES
GAMING IP ON STREAMING
Released Game/Toy Adaptations, by Studio
Data spans Jan. 1, 2010-May 1, 2025
FRANCHISE BUDGETS
Developing & Unreleased Game/Toy Adaptations, by Studio
Data as of May 1, 2025
LIVE-
STREAMING
Notable Transmedia Prodcos, by Game/Toy Adaptations
Data spans Jan. 1, 2010-May 1, 2025
Hollywood’s Involvement in Video Games
Kaare Eriksen is a media analyst for Luminate focusing on film, gaming and the latter’s increasingly pronounced intersection with Hollywood.
TOP GAMING IP
HOLLYWOOD IN GAMING
TRANSMEDIA PLAYERS
Top Gaming Franchises, by Lifetime Unit Sales
Hollywood is playing it safe in the coming years by squeezing more sequels out of existing franchises such as Mortal Kombat and Five Nights at Freddy’s rather than putting new gaming IP to the test. One notable exception is Nintendo and Sony’s live-action take on the former’s Zelda IP, due in two years.
However, even existing IP has risks: Sony is attempting to reboot its Resident Evil franchise again despite flubbing the last attempt in 2021. A surer bet is Paramount’s Sonic, which already has two entries in the top 10 gaming-IP films and could add another in 2027.
A Minecraft Movie is nearing $1 billion globally, following in the footsteps of Mario, which returns in 2026. Meanwhile, gaming IP endures on TV through series including The Last of Us, Fallout and Twisted Metal. But these are expensive live-action shows and take longer to make.
Over the past 15 years, the biggest adapter of gaming and toy IP has been Netflix on the TV side, though the streaming service has hedged some bets, having scrapped a film for The Division, reversed course on a Horizon Zero Dawn series and dialed back the scale of its BioShock movie. Still, Netflix has a Gears of War movie in the works from David Leitch, as well as Mega Man and Sifu films in development. Board games are in the mix too, with a Monopoly game show from Hasbro planned for the streamer.
Through PlayStation Productions, Sony is the busiest of the majors when it comes to gaming adaptations and has a God of War series set up at Amazon. But Paramount is focused more on toy-based IP, like American Girl Doll, to add alongside Transformers, on top of its success with Sonic the Hedgehog. Despite The Last of Us, Warner Bros. is sticking to film for transmedia adaptations, with projects including Hot Wheels and Fruit Ninja in development. As for Disney, it never got over its Prince of Persia flop in 2010 and is prioritizing wholly owned IP.
Presiding over just toy IP, Mattel is by far the most active prodco on the Hollywood adaptation front, with significantly more projects in the works than transmedia entities such as LEGO, Story Kitchen and PlayStation Productions. In the wake of Barbie, Mattel's next big film is Masters of the Universe, due in 2026 through Amazon MGM.
Should Skydance close its deal to acquire Paramount Global, the company will be the third of the five majors to have a fully functional gaming division, alongside Sony and Warner Bros. Disney and Universal remain heavy licensors and nothing more, though the former is certainly testing the waters through its $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games. But while Sony’s position in gaming through PlayStation is unwavering, Warner Bros. closed three studios earlier this year and canceled a Wonder Woman game to dial back costs after its Suicide Squad flop last year.
Netflix has shown growing pains after three years in gaming, shuttering its AAA studio without releasing a title and replacing leadership, which is now prioritizing transmedia games that release alongside related streaming originals.
Total Lifetime Mindshare for Individual Original Gaming IP
Data spans Jan. 1, 2019-March 30, 2025
Microsoft’s Minecraft is one of the few behemoth gaming IPs to have sold more than 300 million lifetime unit sales, alongside Call of Duty, which became the company's biggest property as acquired IP in 2023. But none has ever reached the sales heights of Nintendo’s Mario franchise, which could eventually reach a billion units sold and has a billion-dollar film series returning in 2026.
MindGAME Data, a partner service to Screen Engine/ASI that tracks what it dubs “MindSHARE” of awareness for games, shows Minecraft as the top original gaming IP from 2019 to Q1 2025, ahead of Hollywood’s favorite promo platform, Roblox.
As for original franchise launches, no property commanded as much MindSHARE as Call of Duty’s annual releases. Black Ops 6 in 2024 was a franchise best — achieving both launch day and weekend sales records — yet the IP is absent from Hollywood.
Hollywood IP rarely overshadows gaming’s own franchises, yet Warner Bros.’ Hogwarts Legacy sold more games than Call of Duty in 2023, something only Rockstar’s top properties have achieved since 2009. The success of Hogwarts Legacy came a year after Harry Potter hit a snag with its third Fantastic Beasts film, which didn’t meet expectations and resulted in two more sequels being scrapped. Ultimately, the game was a lifeline, as Warner Bros. Discovery ordered a live-action Harry Potter TV series for HBO shortly after the game’s release.
Board games also translate well to video games. MindGAME ranks Cyberpunk 2077 as the biggest launch for a licensed IP game since 2019. Baldur’s Gate 3, based on Dungeons & Dragons, swept the 2023 Game Awards and sold over 10 million copies.
Otherwise, it’s all about FIFA, which leads in total MindSHARE for a licensed game franchise despite its deal with EA ending in 2022.
Fallout remains one of the most remarkable instances of gaming IP successfully translating to Hollywood. Other than Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen, Luminate SV(M) data shows Fallout as the only licensed IP to rank among 2024’s top 10 streaming series.
Leading in Prime Video viewership share as well, Fallout is particularly impressive, as its narrative is not actually based on a single game from the Bethesda series. Instead, it’s an entirely new story set within the IP’s universe that is canonical with games in the franchise, showing how well the IP’s look, feel and tone translated to the TV medium.
Beyond Fallout, Sonic the Hedgehog spinoff Knuckles on Paramount+ contributed to the huge jump in viewership of game-based TV programming on streaming services in 2024, as did the second season of Arcane on Netflix.
2025 is less dramatic than prior years, but Disney still has around seven films scheduled for this year with budgets exceeding $100 million, a trend for which even Apple is making few exceptions beyond F1 this summer.
March’s Snow White ranked among the most expensive films ever made, a high-risk bet that ended up bombing in theaters. The reportedly final Mission: Impossible in 2025 also had a top 10 budget.
Amazon’s Twitch still counts for well over half of all livestreaming engagement, but 2024 hitting more than 30 billion hours watched was due to the growth of Twitch’s rivals. YouTube Gaming grew 66% year over year in hours watched, while the laxly moderated Kick more than doubled. Even without livestreaming, YouTube remains the only realistic competitor to Netflix in terms of overall viewership.
Amazon’s Twitch still counts for well over half of all livestreaming engagement, but 2024 hitting more than 30 billion hours watched was due to the growth of Twitch’s rivals. YouTube Gaming grew 66% year over year in hours watched, while the laxly moderated Kick more than doubled. Even without livestreaming, YouTube remains the only realistic competitor to Netflix in terms of overall viewership.
Overall, esports make up around 10% of livestreaming engagement, but Riot Games still saw League of Legends and Valorant rank close to the No. 1 spot for top games watched in 2024. GTA 5 took the top spot in 2024 thanks to the growing anticipation for GTA 6 later this year.
As for esports tournaments, League of Legends events accounted for three of the five top livestreamed events by peak viewership, while Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, from TikTok owner ByteDance’s Moonton subsidiary, took the other two spots.
Total Mindshare for Original Gaming Franchise Launches
Data spans Jan. 1, 2019-March 30, 2025
Bestselling Video Games on Console/PC in U.S.
Total Mindshare for Licensed IP Game Launches
Data spans Jan. 1, 2019-March 30, 2025
Playing to Win: Hollywood's Gaming IP and Franchise Strategy Guide / 2025
About the Author
Playing to Win: Hollywood's Gaming IP and Franchise Strategy Guide / 2025
Total Lifetime Mindshare for Licensed IP Franchises in Games
Data spans Jan. 1, 2019-March 30, 2025
Top Streaming Original Series in 2024, by Minutes watched
Original Series Viewership Share on Prime Video in 2024
By minutes watched
Viewership of Gaming IP-Based Original Streaming Series
By minutes watched
$100M+ Film Budgets, by Studio
Most Expensive Films, by Reported Budget
Livestreaming Hours Watched in 2024, by Platform
Top livestreamed games in 2024, by hours watched
Top livestreamed games in 2024, by hours watched
