So here's the scoop, kids.

Tomb Raider pulls in nearly $240 million in worldwide box office receipts, and Resident Evil yanks in a surprising $18 mil on its opening weekend. Suddenly, once again there's viability in buying the rights to video games in order to convert them to movies. Among others, well-known titles like Grand Theft Auto, Oni, Alice, Perfect Dark, Max Payne, State of Emergency (didn't take 'em long), and Crazy Taxi.

C'mon, guys. Crazy Taxi? You can try a little harder than that.

On the other hand, there hasn't been a successful video game movie made since Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat, in case you need to be reminded, was released seven years ago. The biggest example of video game-to-movie transition failure would be Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The movie cost $145 million and barely made a third of that domestically. Unfair, sure, but them's the breaks.

So what's the message here? I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it isn't a good one. Anybody over the age of 25 not currently employed by a software development company relates to video game material about as well as a Pat Buchanan relates to Hustler, and it seems like Hollywood execs really don't get the big picture either. Let's break it down.

First, let's establish why this buyout is taking place, aside from the two video game/movie successes listed above. The video game industry for the first time raked in more money than the film industry, a fact helped not a little by the release of not one but two next generation consoles, and a strong run of Playstation 2 titles throughout the year. $9.4 billion, kids. That's a lot of bux.

Fair enough. Video games make a shitload of cash, so it makes sense for movie execs to snap up these licenses in order to produce relatively low-budget films with high-yield box office returns. But... let's take a second here to break down the numbers.

Average video game cost: $49.99. Average cost for next generation console: $299.99.

Average movie ticket cost, of which the distributor gets three-fourths: $7.50.

We're talking far, far fewer video games crossing counters than movie tickets, and there is that little thing where a video game can entertain anywhere from 10 to 70 hours without growing repetitive, whereas a movie can go for two and a half before it gets dull. The price range and longevity of product simply don't synch up. Tack on the fact that 2001 was a banner year for new games and systems, one that has not been duplicated in its precedence since.. well, since ever.

Let's also take into account that 9 out of 10 movies last year licked donkey balls, moreso than any year previously. Maybe that had something to do with shitty box office returns. Oh, by the way, Mr. Movie Executive? Putting every new summer release on record-breaking numbers of screens cross-country may inflate opening weekend box office, but it's going to hurt the gross in the long run. Hollywood shot itself in the foot in 2001, but rather than fix their own problems, they're going to latch on to the largely undisciplined video game industry to cover up unwise business practices. What's going to happen now is what happened before; a dozen hot video game licenses will be bought only to sit on the shelves. Did you know that Doom, Quake, and Duke Nukem 3D were bought years ago?

Oh, sure, there are legions of screenwriters on retainer willing to write a script for one of those movies. But again Hollywood ignorance shines through: those three top titles sit in limbo because Hollywood executives were upset that the games had no plot to work with.

Consider that a moment. Millions of dollars are spent -- on first-person shooters, ohbytheway -- before the purchasers even realize that all the games have going for them is the ability to shoot people. A whole lot. It's very pretty, the shooting, but all it is is shooting. Talk about your all-time shortsighted clusterfucks.

Oh, sure, there's some wisdom to the idea of adapting video games to movies. Grand Theft Auto 3 pulled in nearly $140 million in sales and would draw massive interest as a film, if for nothing else than the extremely, ahem, mature nature of its video game counterpart. There's a built-in fan audience, and Nerd Power has been shown to pull in viable box office gold. Reference Lord of the Rings, Blade, and X-Men. Also note that there are video game fans who will go see video game movies out of loyalty, if nothing else. The nerds may bitch and moan later (they always do), but hey -- the tickets have already been bought and tallied. What you think about a film after you buy the ticket is tertiary.

But Hollywood is ignorant. It does not understand the medium, and apparently does not realize the supreme irony in some of their purchases. Take a look at Max Payne. The whole bloody purpose of Payne was to put players in control of an noir action hero who could work in "bullet-time," that oft-duplicated and supremely annoying special effect made most famous in The Matrix. Payne, then, is an homage and send-up of action movies. Why on God's green earth do you want to turn right back around and make a movie out of a movie homage? Variety, God bless it, missed out on the joke and just thought Payne was a shameless rip.

Hollywood so disrespects and misunderstands the video game industry that they can't help but bungle the handling of it. Consider the aforementioned Variety's summary of the plot and point of Grand Theft Auto 3.

"...[a game] in which players steal cars, beat up or kill a city's locals and take time-outs with prostitutes."

Sounds downright infernal, doesn't it? Oh, sure, you can do those things, no problem. What isn't mentioned is that you can also act as a police officer (of sorts), a firefighter putting out fires, a paramedic taking injured people to the hospital, et cetera. That the game employs big names like Joe Pantoliano, Robert Loggia, Michael Madsen, and Kyle McLachlan is similarly overlooked. The game, arguably the best created for a console to date, also possesses a plot more complex and involved than most modern novels.

Video games as hot property for movie development is a dangerous idea, obviously. Incompetent management in film studios coupled with unwise buying decisions -- "hey, kids eat this shit up, and they buy a lot of movie tickets, so it must be a sure thing" -- will only see video game movie box office returns weaken and weaken, and never really allow the artform (if it can be called that) to excel. Further, video games will most likely be designed and thought out in such a way that they can be sold promptly and smoothly into the movie industry -- effectively locking programmers into formulas and stifling creativity.

What can we do about it? Frankly not too much. Hollywood noses follow wherever the money goes, and right now unchecked amounts of cash are flowing into a video game industry that pays relatively little money to produce its goods. Frankly, I think our best hope lies in the M-rated titles -- those deemed way too intense for younger audiences (or Nintendo fans). Allow companies like Rockstar Games to run wild, and video games may remain too damn inaccessible for feel-good moviemaking.

One can only hope.