Video game company Nintendo made a movie with Minions creator Illumination. That film – The Super Mario Bros. Movie – has been an enormous success as it topples records for an animation feature and closes in on the one-billion dollar mark at the global box office. But do you know another company that makes movies? That would be Sony.
Sony is a conglomerate and while its PlayStation business used to be quite separate from its movie making arm, the Japanese giant at some point decided to more closely integrate the two. This bore fruit with the Uncharted movie, based off its Naughty Dog games, while Sony is developing more such adapatations. Meanwhile, one of PlayStation's earliest mascots is being called out for the silver screen treatment.
On Twitter, game development studio Toys For Bob called out Sony saying it is high time for Crash to make his theatrical debut.
If you didn't know, Toys For Bob is an Activision Blizzard studio based in northern California. The developer has existed in some form since 1989 but has been connected with Crash Bandicoot ever since it helped with the Nintendo Switch port of Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy and went on to develop Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time. Incidentally, it's also behind the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, which was praised as a remake.
Crash Bandicoot was one of PlayStation's earliest mascots. Created by Naughty Dog as an exclusive for the PS1, the platformer became an icon for the brand in the same way that cutesy characters Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario became mascots for Sega and Nintendo, respectively. While Naughty Dog was acquired by Sony in 2001, Crash Bandicoot ended up belonging to Activision and the IP to the orange bandicoot is still the property of Activision Blizzard. It's all a little messy especially when you consider Microsoft is trying to merge with Activision Blizzard.
It is known that Sony has more than ten film and TV projects in the works connected to video games. These include the upcoming Gran Turismo movie; a God of War TV adaptation at Amazon; a Twisted Metal TV adaptation; and a Ghost of Tsushima film, among others. With the success of the Mario movie, perhaps a Crash Bandicoot animation produced by Sony could follow in the plumber's success, since the most recent Sonic movie also did well at the box office.
Meanwhile, Toys For Bob is gearing up for the launch of 4v4 game Crash Team Rumble, a cinematic trailer for which was released on YouTube yesterday.