The Batman 2 co-writer says Hollywood is now 5x more interested in video game adaptations than comic books

Mattson Tomlin, co-writer of The Batman 2, says Hollywood has pivoted hard from comic book IP to video game IP — and he has the offer sheet to prove it. Speaking on social media, Tomlin said he's receiving at least five times more pitches for video game adaptations than comic book ones this year.

The comments came up when Tomlin was asked about the Mega Man movie he once worked on. He confirmed he's no longer attached — he wrote several drafts before another writer took over — but he thinks the project could still happen given the current climate. On the broader shift, he was direct: Hollywood has gone from comic book obsessed to video game obsessed, and the box office backs that up. The Super Mario Bros. Movie made $1.3 billion. This year's The Super Mario Galaxy Movie crossed $1 billion. A Minecraft Movie landed just under $1 billion. Sonic the Hedgehog and Five Nights at Freddy's have both built reliable franchises. Even the Iron Lung film punched well above its budget. Not every video game adaptation lands — Mortal Kombat 2 underperformed, and Until Dawn and Return to Silent Hill barely registered theatrically — but the overall trend is unmistakable.

The superhero side of the ledger tells the opposite story. Outside of guaranteed tentpoles like Spider-Man and Deadpool, the genre is struggling. Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts, and Supergirl all had difficult runs at the box office. Marvel and DC still have massive releases coming — Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday among them — but the era of any superhero property printing money is clearly over. Video games, by contrast, carry built-in global fanbases, recognizable characters, and decades of nostalgia that studios are only now fully learning to exploit on screen.

The pipeline ahead is dense. Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie arrives in September, Street Fighter follows in October, and 2027 is stacked: The Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog 4, The Angry Birds Movie 3, A Minecraft Movie Squared, and a Helldivers film are all scheduled. Beyond that, an Elden Ring movie is currently filming, Call of Duty and Battlefield are in development, and adaptations of Horizon Zero Dawn, Gears of War, Death Stranding, Metal Gear Solid, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are all in the works. Super Mario Movie 3 is expected in 2029. For writers like Tomlin, the message from studios is already clear — bring us a controller, not a cape.