Capcom has been pretty successful with their major Hollywood releases.  Sure, back in the day, the Street Fighter movie may have tanked critically, but it did gross over $100 million worldwide.  Not bad for a film with Kylie Minogue in a major role.   Their more recent projects have been decent action flicks that make money.  Take the Resident Evil series, for example; the three movies have combined to gross over $375 million worldwide, with a fourth film in the works.  With a new Street Fighter film currently in production, it’s safe to say that no one has figured out game-to-movie translation better than Capcom (not that that’s saying much).

Despite their film success with well-known properties, Capcom has never made a movie with a budget of more than $45 million.  This begs the question, why would they triple that number for a franchise that, outside the hardcore game community, is completely unknown?  In an interview, Capcom’s Toshihiro Tokumaru stated that the upcoming movie based on the mildly succesfull game, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition will "cost somewhere between 150 and 200 million dollars to make.”

I think that Lost Planet might be an interesting enough IP to make a successful movie out of, but for that kind of money?  That’s Iron Man money we’re talking about.  I have a hard time believing that a movie based on an unknown game, no matter how good it is, will be able to cover that kind of investment, seeing as how none of the well-known RE movies were able to reach the $150 million mark.  Then again, I have a hard time believing that Tokumaru isn’t inflating this number.  A lot. 

Expect to hear that the Lost Planet movie somehow, miraculously, came in waaaaay under budget.  Either that, or expect to hear about the legend of Lost Planet; the biggest money pit in the history of Hollywood.

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