By Bethesda has some of the biggest IP in gaming under its label. They make millions from brands like Fallout, DOOM, Wolfenstein and Elder Scrolls, but those IPs — aside from Doom — haven’t made the jump over into any other media. There’s no fantasy movies based on Elder Scrolls, no campy alt-history Wofenstein film and no post-apocalyptic action piece based on Fallout. Even the two Doom movies aren’t based on Bethesda and Id’s most current take of the franchise. It’s kind of weird if you think about it because there’s definitely money to be had there.
Todd Howard, director of Bethesda, has a good reason, though. Evidently, the right offer has come along yet. In an interview with THR, the head-honcho of the studio said that he’d had plenty of discussions with plenty of folks but nothing ever comes of it.
“It’s come up a lot of times, particularly over the last decade as our stuff has gotten very popular, but nothing has really come of it. I’ve taken a lot of meetings. I can’t say never, but there hasn’t been one up to this point where we say, yeah, that’s it.”
That being said, he’s not against the IPs jumping over into film or TV, but Bethesda won’t be the one to do it, unlike other companies like Ubisoft who are branching into film and TV production on their own. He says if it does happen it will be with the people who already know how to do it.
Look, I’ll be the first to defend the absolutely ridiculous Dwayne Johnson Doom movie (“Semper Fi, mother fucker.”), but these properties are rife for some actual quality filmmaking. Then again, that’s a lot to ask of Hollywood, who routinely struggles to deliver even something remotely good when it comes to video game movies. In fact, if Detective Pikachu didn’t exist I’d say they’d have pretty much failed across the board. Maybe it’s best that Howard doesn’t want Bethesda’s brands brought to film and TV?
