14 Movies That Had No Business Getting A Video Game Tie-In

Wayne's World is one of several Saturday Night Live sketches adapted into full-length movies. Granted, it's probably the best of the bunch. It's a funny movie with many memorable gags, but there aren't any action sequences. This makes the film a bizarre choice to adapt into a video game. The Wanye's World game is a platformer where you run around as Wayne and shoot electricity out of a guitar. Outside of the main characters' appearance and the occasional cutscene, nothing really shouts “Wayne's World” about the game. The game almost feels like a parody of generic tie-in games, which would fit the film quite nicely.

Little Nicky may be one of Adam Sandler's worst films, which is truly an accomplishment given its competition. The film stars Sandler as one of Satan's sons tasked with retrieving his more evil brothers from Earth. While it is more high-concept than many of Sandler's other comedies, there still aren't many moments that would easily translate into exciting gameplay. The Little Nicky game for the Game Boy Color was a platformer loosely based around the events of the movie. While the game's existence is baffling, it did get a smattering of positive reviews, which is more than can be said about the film it's based on.

Plan 9 from Outer Space is generally considered one of the worst movies ever made. Similar to other midnight movie classics like The Room or Troll 2, this has made the film something people enjoy watching as its sheer incompetence makes it entertaining. However, this makes it a weird choice for a movie tie-in game. The types of movies that usually get a video game adaptation or tie-in are typically the ones popular enough to guarantee sales. A terrible old film with an ironic following is a pretty niche property to mine for a quick buck…

Toys is a very strange movie, and not one people liked all that much despite its incredible production design. What starts out as a movie about a son who is too immature to take over the family business spirals into a surreal film about an army general training children to remotely operate toy war machines. It wasn't well-received, and it ended up being a total box office failure, making it an especially weird choice for a movie tie-in game. Clearly, the game must have been in development before the film tanked at the box office. Some higher-up thought creating a video game based on a Barry Levinson picture would be a good idea. Because Rain Man, Diner, and Good Morning, Vietnam signaled that he would finally make a kid-friendly movie.

In an attempt to recreate the smash success of the live-action Grinch Who Stole Christmas adaptation, another beloved Dr. Seuss property - The Cat in the Hat - got its own live-action treatment. The film was widely panned and even won a few ironic awards, like its Razzy for “Worst Excuse for an Actual Movie.” The original book's succinct plot was already stretched paper thin by the overly-long movie, so it's strange that someone thought it would be a good idea to stretch it even further into a video game adaptation. The weird platforming game starring the titular cat feels so removed from Seuss' original work that players can't help but notice the game only exists to make money and not to create a fun or meaningful experience.

A Series of Unfortunate Events focuses on the three Baudelaire children and their ongoing struggles against the villainous Count Olaf, who is determined to steal their inheritance. Intended to start a major motion picture series, a la Harry Potter, this 2004 flick didn't exactly light the box office on fire, and the sequels were canceled. While modern gamers can likely imagine an interesting puzzle game that simulates the Baudelaire children's clever escape plans and inventions, there weren't too many innovative games like that back when the movie came out. The games that did veer into that specific territory certainly weren't movie tie-in games.

On paper, Howard the Duck isn't the strangest property to tap for a video game adaptation. He is a Marvel Comics character, after all. Howard can fight, knows Quack-Fu, and is an anthropomorphic animal like many other video game protagonists. What makes it a weird choice is that most people who saw the movie absolutely hated it. Even if a movie seems well-suited to a game, a negative association with the brand name will likely turn some people off of buying a tie-in. Of course, the decision to make the game came well before audiences saw the movie…

Dennis the Menace is another one of those movies that could probably have made an interesting game if it came out more recently. A game where players control a young kid devising elaborate pranks on his neighbors could be fun. However, at the time of its release, the vast majority of movie tie-in games were generic platformers, which the film doesn't really lend itself to. The game itself is also just a strange realization of its source material. It is a platformer where Dennis collects coins and avoids enemies and environmental hazards. With so many chaotic things going on around Dennis, he feels less like a clever troublemaker and more just like a bland player avatar in a world more interesting than him.

While Beowulf has all the trappings of an epic fantasy story, when it comes down to it, there really isn't all that much action in the 2007 adaptation of the old poem. Beowulf only has two main fights throughout the entire film: Grendel and the Dragon. This makes the movie a strange choice to adapt into a hack-and-slash game. Unlike the film, Beowulf: The Game is full of fights, even having Beowulf take on overly large crabs on the beach as soon as he lands. While the temptation is understandable to use the film/poem's recognizable name to create a game, there just isn't enough content in the source material to turn into a full-on action game without making up a vast majority of it.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a beloved film, and many still consider it one of Spielberg's best. While it doesn't seem strange that a wildly successful film would receive a video game adaptation, it is a bit odd when considering the actual content of the film. The charm of E.T. doesn't come from its plot but more from the audience's emotional investment in E.T. and Elliot's relationship. That's why when a video game came out that was all about collecting items to assemble an intergalactic phone, nobody really cared because that wasn't the appeal of the film. It didn't help that the game was rushed and has gone down as one of the worst video game disasters in the medium's relatively scant history.

A major theme of WALL-E is the harmful nature of consumer culture, so it's kind of ironic that it would be given a needless tie-in game, especially since many copies probably wound up in a landfill somewhere. The first half of the film is a nearly dialogue-free rumination on newfound, surprising love… you know, precisely what most people are looking for in their video games. There isn't much for the player to do in a WALL-E tie-in game besides retreading the plot they've already seen in the movie. This leaves the games as simply a more bloated and worse-looking version of the film and is a prime example of the shovelware movie tie-ins that simply don't get made anymore.

There are plenty of exciting scenes in Back to the Future, but the action doesn't lend itself to a video game adaptation all that well. This is especially true in the 1980s when the Back to the Future tie-in game was made, as video games had not yet progressed to the point where they could do a lot of storytelling. The Back to the Future game is a top-down arcade-style game where Marty just skateboards around collecting clocks. There is also the occasional baffling minigame, like when Marty hucks milkshakes at diner patrons or collects hearts from his mother. It shows that the developers were stretching to find things for the players to actually do in the game. It's clear the game was just trying to cash in on the popularity of the films instead of having a solid idea, which is usually a good sign that a movie shouldn't have a video game adaptation.

The Addams Family movie adaptation was a reimagining of the old ‘60s TV series that brought the delightfully macabre family into the modern day. Though the movie’s box office success would make a movie tie-in game seem like an intelligent business decision, the film itself doesn't exactly have much to adapt into a game. The tie-in game for the movie was yet another bland platformer with an Addams Family skin draped over it. And while the Addams family themselves might enjoy the idea of something shambling around wearing someone else's skin, it doesn't make for an entertaining game.

In isolation, the Godfather video game is actually a good amount of fun. It's a decent GTA clone with some interesting mechanics around extorting money from small businesses as part of the Corleone's protection racket. That being said, The Godfather is an undoubtedly strange choice to base this type of game on. For one thing, the movie was 34 years old when the game came out, and while it is still very culturally relevant, it isn't like it's a recent blockbuster that would help sell copies to young players. The game also lacks a lot of class and subtlety of the original films, something that Francis Ford Coppola pointed out himself.