The very worst part about this movie adaptation culture bubble we're constantly wrapped up within is that everyone thinks they're due a profitably adaptation as long as they've got the money to force it through a production studio. There's no longer that eye from a production studio going 'eh, this is probably a bad idea', probably for the dual reasons that money talks louder, and that production studios have proven in recent years how very little they know about the products they produce. Turns out it's more of a numbers/luck game for how they've been running things up till no. Go figure. And in this rush to try and squeeze a fresh audience from everything on this planet of ours, from beloved childhood books to offhand remarks made at coffee shops, there are a few ideas that should have died on the lips of the lunatics that coined them, making it all the way to active development. Which is scary.
Let me be upfront with you- I love the first Kingdom Hearts game. Having played it only a few years ago myself, I am speaking from personal experience when I declare it an absolute modern day hood classic with the staying power to delight even now amidst it's peers. (Although maybe that is no great statement to make consider the absolute drop-off of kid friendly action adventure games all around Kingdom Hearts leading to an sharp decline in competition to push that genre's needle forward. It's pretty much just Kingdom Hearts and the rare Mario game at this point.) And it's with that familiarity with the franchise, as well as my love for storytelling, that I convey how absolutely hairbrained it is to think anyone can sit down and make a comprehensive, cohesive and creative movie around the Kingdom Hearts brand. Even if it's not a straight adaptation, it would be a chore. And I think this is actually supposed to be an adaption!
But given that Nintendo are very eager to push their own cinematic empire out the gate following the success of the Mario movie, apparently with a Zelda movie in the works, a Donkey Kong spin-off and, at some point down the road, a Smash Bros crossover event- the gauntlet has been thrown. The challenge has been issued. Disney have been put on notice and now they need an animated movie empire of their own. Similarly, Square Enix haven't been doing so hot recently. Oh, they're making money- but not in an angling graph of profitability like they hoped for. As it happens they pushed for very expensive gamble games in a couple years of slow growth for the industry and now they are looking for something of a vertical growth angle that will lay seeds to profit in the near to distant future. God knows why they thought a Kingdom Hearts movie being finally pushed into production would be that lifeline- but at least we know well enough why they're this desperate.
Now of course, nothing official has been announced- but when we're talking about Disney that's hardly the only vector through which information is portrayed. Leakers give us such a three-sixty scope of every product that company has ever put into production that I genuinely think Marvel under Disney hasn't been able to pull off a surprise since the name reveal for 'Endgame'- and even then that title was unwittingly spoiled by an actor's gaffe a few weeks beforehand. As of now the leaker is saying that Disney are balancing the proposition in their minds, weighing the possibilities available to them, all whilst I imagine Square Enix is pounding on their door demanding their cut because as desperate as they are, you just know their other partner is going to push this down the greenlight road as haphazardly as possible.
The very first hurdle that a Kingdom Hearts movie, or even a TV series, would have to contend with is how in the hell one would condense the narrative into a cohesive presentation. The story of Kingdom Hearts is tucked within hours of games and side games all building atop on another into oblivion, and even if the first game kept everything relatively comprehensive- it still packed itself with mysteries that verge on the curious to the downright bizarre. On one hand, the strange appearance of a single member from Organisation XIII is a fun little prelude to what will happen down the road, on the otherhand the absolute verbal diarrhoea spouted on that beach in the post credits scene is a storytelling travesty. (I say this currently in full knowledge of what the entire conversation meant, recognising how vapid it ultimately was.) And this franchise is full of stuff like that! Look no further than the scrambling way the franchise spent it's first few titles refuting itself in a desperation to define what the heck 'Kingdom Hearts' even is. I still couldn't tell you.
Secondly, Kingdom Hearts juggles quite a large number of properties owned by a bevy of different copyright holders who are portrayed in very specific ways. It's a wonder how Nomura was able to get away with some of his depictions in the game, but I wonder how someone totally unrelated to the gaming space could finagle the rights to portray Leon as a washed up failure operating under a pseudonym in order to hide from his screw up past. Or Cloud as a totally edgy 2000's-coded too-cool-to-care badass who slides into scenes just long enough to reaffirm how disinterested he is with everyone else's plight on his way to battle Sephiroth for the umpteenth time. Or Goofy as a neglectful partner who abandons his significant other at the drop of a hat to go planet hopping with the boys. (Actually that last one does line up with the man's characterisation in Goof Troop, I guess.)
And thirdly, does anyone actually realise what the Kingdom Hearts games actually are, I mean from a conceptual level? They're gamifications of popular Disney movies. How do you turn Alice in Wonderland into a game? You tie it into the convoluted narrative of Heartless monsters seeking to sabotage Alice for some unknown reason. (A reason which, at the end of the day, contradicts the overall plans of the badguy because if Alice had been executed like they were trying to make happen, he wouldn't have had the Princess souls necessary to open the way to Kingdom Hearts or whatever.) What I'm trying to say is, the meat of any Kingdom Hearts game is retelling, practically note for note, popular Disney stories in game format. A totally non-additive adaption. Readapting those stories back into visual-only form is an exorcise in redundancy that I don't think the producers are ready to fully comprehend.
Remember the audience you are contributing to, and know that these are the kinds of people who considered the Mario movie confusing. If you really think Kingdom Hearts is the kind of property that is just going to suck up a casual viewerbase, then all I can is prepared to be shocked when your viewing metrics drop off a cliff as people drop this show/movie halfway through the first arc. The thing is, Kingdom Hearts is a classic, but it is so of it's time. Spiky haired anime boys who strive their hardest and end up succeeding because they simply believed in themselves until the end is a played out commodity that died over a decade ago. There's no place to bring it back for a franchise as convoluted, obtuse and frankly batty as this. Still want KH 4 though.
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