Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

The "Riot should make a Movie" Problem

TheHobbits·1/16/2018, 9:01:38 AM·4 votes·4,286 views

Let me clarify early that this is not a negative thread, in fact its quite the opposite.

https://youtu.be/3Eu7NzzHC84

With the recent addition of the Climb cinematic (which was fantastic) the usual "Riot should make a movie" discussion arises, but there is a problem. How could Riot possibly make a movie to please all its fans? Climb gave us a quick glimpse at the kinds of battles Ekko Taliyah MissFortune Lucian were engaging in across the world. Each leaving us wanting to see more, but what if Riot made a full 2 hour long movie? Who's story would they follow?

With near 140 champions a film that featured every character would feel cheesy. A movie that follows just a handful of cast may leave some fans feeling left out. I personally would love a movie set in Zaun. A story about the chem-barons and mob bosses, in the dark and dirty city beneath the city.

https://youtu.be/fsnDbealN9E

And then there is another issue. We all know how movies based on video games have turned out. (Not the best.) Video game movies often spend to much time filling us in on who the character are and where they are from and what they are doing before actually getting into any of the good stuff, or they simply base the movie off a basic knowledge of the source material to create 'their interpretation'.

Have you noticed something about a lot of the League cinematic's? Large scripts with back and forth dialogue isn't all the present. Riot lets the characters personalities speak for them. Events like the Burning Tides gave us a wonderful story, but novels are often altered to better suit the movie experience.

https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/site/bilgewater/#story-1

The world, the lore, the characters and themes Riot would be able to create any story they wanted. A mafia / godfather story in Zaun, a pirates adventure / heist movie in Bligewater or even a love story between Xayah and Rakan set in Ionia featuring Zed and the even Akali.

Ekko's story would my pick. With a cast including Viktor Urgot Warwick Singed set in Zaun and Piltover. Characters like Blitzcrank Janna and Ezreal would likely make an appearance.

https://youtu.be/FtEpp9lkfxA

Anyway, do you see what I'm getting at? TL:DR - Riot SHOULD make a movie, but something more like an independent art style film rather than a big budget film Suicide Squad or the Warcraft movie.

https://youtu.be/vzHrjOMfHPY

I leave you with a quick thought about A New Dawn. Can you just picture Katarina Draven Zyra and Nautilus having a discussion about how best to take out their enemies? I'd like to see that in a movie. [slayer-jinx-wink]

11 Comments

Yordanik1/16/2018, 10:55:48 AM4 votes

a film for demacia vs noxus, ionia , shurima .... would be amazing

ChompyWulf1/16/2018, 5:23:56 PM3 votes

The question is, who would be the target audience? That determines the route to pursue. If they want the broadest audience possible, an attempted blockbuster will get put in more theaters, but will have higher production costs and risk a huge flop. Factor in Riot doesn't have the resources to shoot a movie, and would therefore have to negotiate a deal with a producer and distributor, which also means surrendering your IP to be interpreted by people outside your company.

You make an "independent" movie based on a video game, you're basically giving up any chance of a broad theater release, and end up relying on stream buys, rentals, and disc purchases to make the production profitable. This could potentially be done with cheap acting talent, but that leads to generally bad results. They could put a lot of work into making a CG animation in house, but that would take a lot of man hours that could take away from their normal promotional material.

Realistically, neither choice is good. Their best option wouldn't be a movie, but an anthology format TV series such as American Horror Story, where each season focuses on a different cast of characters.

Jaspers1/16/2018, 10:30:40 AM2 votes

I can understand the issues around it but extended lore outside of the Universe page would be a welcome thing. They can't cater for all heroes in one film, regardless of the popularity of the game or brand. You could say that maybe things like comics are the way to get but comic book industry isn't doing to hot right now (not the films, the comics) so it's risky.

Maybe what they could do is mini-film/cartoon series or something around a main character. Ezreal is an explorer right? It could be a series about him journeying across Runeterra and he meets these champs and helps or fights them for whatever reason around their lore.

Emperor of Fate1/16/2018, 2:00:47 PM2 votes

I think that a series is better than a movie as it can cover every bit of lore we know and..dont know just yet..but this would most likely be a very expensive project! I! As far as the format of the series is concerned i can see as following the stories of several champs(one or two per region)

Bryce Games1/22/2019, 2:55:26 PM1 votes

My thing is RIOT is rich with a net worth of 2.1 Billion in 2017. That is HUGE, RIOT has the money to develop, create and design a movie themselves without the help from a separate company. I mean sure they would need to hire some sort of production designer & Director with them but again RIOT has the money. I feel a movie would bring RIOT more money then it would cost them to create it. A movie would not only bring more attention to League which in turn leads to people spending money buying RP but this would also allow for more League advertisements, a YouTube trailer & possibly on the blockbuster list. From what I have seen from other movies based on games examples being: Wreck-It Ralph, Rise of the Tomb Raider, & Ready Player One movie based on video games do very well as the gaming audience is very large in turn means a very large audience watching these movies. So RIOT please for 2019 consider creating a movie I fell me and many others would love to see something like this & if not a movie a TV series of some sort!!! Please!

The Iceborn9/16/2019, 9:23:59 AM1 votes

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