Video game movies have become a pretty reliable stream of income for IP owners and studios in the modern era, with the likes of Mario, Sonic, Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil spawning multiple cinematic adaptations.
One of the most recent success stories is the Minecraft movie, which stars Jack Black. It turns out the actor, songwriter and gaming fan was almost involved in another video game movie, but it's one that's rather more leftfield.
According to writer and producer Ben Mekler, who has TV credits such as Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight and Die Hart to his name, we very nearly got a film based on Sony's MediEvil series of video games—and the band Tenacious D, of which Jack Black is a member, was lined up to provide the soundtrack.
Sadly, it seems this particular dream movie wasn't to be, but given that we're getting some pretty far-out adaptations these days, who knows if it could be resurrected (no pun intended, honest)?
MediEvil began life on the PS1 console in 1998 and would get a sequel on the same machine in 2000. Two remakes—MediEvil: Resurrection (there it is again!) and plain old MediEvil—arrived in 2005 and 2019 respectively.
More recently, former Sony Interactive Entertainment America President and CEO Shawn Layden said he'd love to see the series get another shot at fame:
"This is just a game that spoke to me when I first saw it, and I love the guys working on it - so much so we got a sequel out of it, which was also fun and fabulous and I was able to get it remastered for PS4... I would love another whack at MediEvil... If I could wave a magic wand and have one more bite at an apple, it would be the MediEvil apple."