Follow a game’s rules, not its story: Exit 8 director Genki Kawamura on the secret to a successful movie adaptation

Exit 8 hit cinemas last weekend, a new movie based on the cult 2023 indie game from Kotake Create. Flying in the face of the convention set by many video game to film adaptations of the past, it’s actually rather good, currently sitting at a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

GamesIndustry.biz sat down with director Genki Kawamura to find out the secret to a successful film adaptation, how he aimed to blur the lines between the mediums of cinema and video games, and how the current crop of indie titles offer much more fertile grounds for films than games of the past.

Was it difficult to adapt Exit 8 to film considering that it’s relatively light on story?

Yeah, the video game, as you mentioned, comes with no story. So I saw this both as a slight handicap or challenge, but also an opportunity. If we could apply the right story and have a strong theme as a backbone, I thought it would make for a very interesting cinematic experience.

Did that make it easier, because you could start with capturing the experience of the game and then add the story to it? Or did they have to be created together?

When I took on this project, I first decided that we weren’t going to be making a film adaptation of a video game as much as blurring the lines between the video game and movie mediums. And I got clues to this when I spoke with Shigeru Miyamoto from Nintendo 10 years ago. He said, “Really great games will entertain the player, but they’ll also entertain people watching the player and the screen.”

So at times, I wanted the film to feel like we were capturing that gaming essence, and then at times the streamers, and at times, the audience watching the streamers. So what was happening in the video game landscape at large, I wanted to translate that phenomena into this new movie-type experience.

How receptive is the film world to adaptations like this when compared to the past? Do you speak the same language, or do you find yourself talking at cross purposes when film people talk to game people, and vice versa?

Since the source material was an indie video game developed by a single person, Kotake, I think the fact that we were able to talk as creator to creator really streamlined and helped the communication, which made the project successful.

You’ve said before that you set out, particularly in the opening scenes, to make the movie feel like a video game to make it feel more creepy. Do you think it’s possible to make a movie feel like a game and not be creepy? Or will the act of playing a game always feel a little bit strange when it’s manifested in a movie?

When I was writing the screenplay, I was watching a lot of live streams and archives of different game playthroughs on YouTube. And what I thought was really interesting is because the game is so simple, there were as many stories as there were videos and players playing the game. They all had their own unique interpretation.

And I thought, well, since we have this white, very sanitized corridor, what if it was projected on there? I looked at Dante’s Divine Comedy and this idea of purgatory, where the characters are being judged, so looking at the different sins that each individual who wanders into this space has committed being manifested in the space and reflected back on them. I thought it was an interesting link between gameplay and this idea of purgatory.

In terms of cinematic inspirations, were there any particular horror movies you had in mind? Or were you more focused on the gaming side of things?

Since we’re taking a video game and turning it into a film, I think that in and of itself is quite cutting edge and a much more modern trend, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t looking at different kinds of classical horror films.

Some that come to mind are Ugetsu by Kenji Mizoguchi, The Shining by Stanley Kubrick, and Eraserhead by David Lynch. All of these films take what’s happening within the human mind and project it into the world – so the guilt that we all carry is reflected back upon our main characters. Likewise, all three take this idea of fatherhood and deconstruct it as we watch these people mentally break down and get further and further away from the responsibilities of fatherhood.

You mentioned that you’d set out to blur the line between films and games. Do you want to keep going down that path? And are there any other games or game-like experiences that you think would be suitable to this kind of approach?

This film was an official selection at Cannes, for which I’m very grateful, but what I’ve learned is that Cannes is very open to challenging the status quo. They’re open to films that expand the possibilities of what the film and movie medium can do – and this, with the source material being a video game, I think certainly had a different angle.

Oftentimes with video game adaptations, it’s difficult because people try to take the story of the video game and translate that into a movie – I don’t think it really functions that way. I think what we need to look at from games is the design of the game itself, or the rules that the game has created, and extract something that will give us a look into human nature and adapt that angle of the video game. So it’s hard to say if I’ll go down the exact same path, but I think I’ll certainly try different challenges and different types of expression that will push that status quo.

Do you think that your knowledge of games helps you bring a new perspective to filmmaking?

Absolutely. I basically grew up with Nintendo, I’ve loved games throughout my life, and now I play a lot of indie games that I also love very, very much.

Looking at games that are coming out right now and the movies that are being adapted from them, both Exit 8 and Backrooms, for example, take this idea of liminal space, and both games really expanded what can be done within the video game medium. And because they push that boundary, I think they’re open for a movie interpretation.

So I think the generation that is making video game-based movies now has a much different approach than the previous generation, which wasn’t quite working, and I’m excited to see what that is going to translate to as more video games are translated into film.

Did you make the cast play the game before you started filming?

I didn’t make them all play the game, but in my direction for The Walking Man, for example, played by Yamato Kochi, I said, “Walk as though you were rendered and animated in CG, and smile as though you were smiling with GenAI.” Similarly, with Kazunari Ninomiya, our Lost Man, he was almost like the first QA tester or debugger of this film. We would have the screenplay, and then we would shoot and edit it really quick, then we’d watch it together and have these discussions. It was almost like we were debugging on the spot: we would rewrite the screenplay, make any adjustments, and reshoot it. So it felt like we were rendering this film in real time, with a lot of feedback loops that were very quick in their iterations.

With regards to the set design, I really wanted to capture the feel that it was rendered in a game engine. As much as possible, I didn’t want to rely on CG or VFX in post-production to create that effect, so most of what you see in the film is done practically.

Have you been surprised by any of the reactions to the film?

At first, I was very nervous, because it’s an experimental movie. I didn’t know how it was going to screen at Cannes, and how it would be received. But when it was shown in the Lumière auditorium, which has a capacity of about 2,300, I was very relieved to have an eight-minute standing ovation at the end. And that led to us securing a distribution deal with Neon, which is now helping the film propel itself within North America.

When we screened the film at Cannes and Toronto, it was a slightly surreal experience, because somehow I was able to bring together movie critics, video game players, and cinephiles all in one space, which is a mixture you don’t normally see.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.