As movie studios continue to buy up as many comic-book franchises as they can, it's soon becoming a case where new intellectual properties are an endangered resource.
Where can large-scale studios next plunder ideas from? Original ones, you say? PFFT.
Videogames. Already, Michael Fassbender has signed up to star and produce a blockbuster version of Assassin's Creed whilst Homeland's Rupert Friend will star as Agent 47 from Hitman in 2015.
The venerable Mega Drive - or Genesis, if you're an American - and its vast array of titles are being explored as potential options for feature-length films by Stories International, a joint venture between Sega and advertising agency Hakuhodo DY.
So far, classics such as Shinobi, Streets of Rage, Altered Beast, Rise of Nightmares and Crazy Taxi have all been tapped for future productions.
Sega hasn't produced a console since the Dreamcast, all the way back in 1999. Instead, they've been making their wedge by franchising their properties out. For example, Sonic The Hedgehog is available on XboxLive and so on.
Initial thoughts? Believe it or not, the belief that all videogame movies are inherently crap may soon become history. Duncan Jones, he of Moon and Source Code, is putting the finishing touches to Warcraft - the film based on the popular MMORPG.
Fassbender's take on Assassin's Creed will see him work with indie auteur Justin Kurzel. Studios are aware that there's an audience who will be familiar with these stories and characters.
However, the raft of terrible videogame movies is too large to ignore. Anyone remember the Double Dragon movie with Robert Patrick? Or Super Mario Bros. with John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins?!
Exactly. We're not holding out a lot of hope for a decent Streets of Rage movie.
