Nintendo Fever: Which games will get the Super Mario Bros. Movie treatment next?

Alright, this is the dividing line: The point where our ability to predict the market, and the ever-ineffable whims of Nintendo, start to break down. Because, on the one hand, Metroid is an incredibly powerful brand in gaming circles; it contains some of the most beloved games of all time, including a very . On the other hand, it’s a franchise that anyone who isn’t deeply immersed in gaming is likely to be pretty neutral on. (Although, to be fair, that hasn’t stopped Hollywood producers—most notably John Woo, of all people—from taking a swing at the film rights from time to time.) The bigger problem with a Metroid movie, though, is tonal: The best games in the franchise operate almost entirely in silence, creating a slow, steady feeling of isolation as one-woman army Samus Aran cuts her way through space pirates and parasites alike. Any movie adaptation is going to be tempted to talk things up—flesh out Samus’ backstory, or, god forbid, give her someone to periodically converse with. And that would be death for a series like Metroid, which is as much about the feeling of being alone in a very hostile place as any of the franchise’s iconic visual designs.

Honestly, the only reason this franchise isn’t higher on the adaptation list is that Nintendo seems to have mostly forgotten that its series of space dog (and cat, and frog)-fighting sims is still around. Certainly, all the ingredients for a decent movie adaptation are here: Well-designed but simple characters with obvious personality hooks; cool-looking spaceships; tons of visual spectacle in the form of massive, intricate space battles. Sure, you’d have to explain to the kids why the nice fox pilot and the evil wolf pilot are trying to murder each other in the midst of an intergalactic war, but, on the other hand: A decent Star Fox movie would sell a ludicrous number of toys. (And if we get another actual Star Fox game out of it for the first time in years, so much the better.)

Despite the prominence they’ve picked up from regular bouts in the super-popular Smash Bros. games—ever hungry, as they are, for one more dude or lady with a sword to round out their casts—the Fire Emblem strategy games have always been more of a going concern in their native Japan than in the United States. That being said, if Hollywood does decide to take the plunge, it could herald a more mature direction for the Nintendo adaptation market; the Fire Emblem games tell significantly more thoughtful stories than the rest of the company’s output, tales of war and friendships tested on the battle. (Also: Lots of smooching, via the series’ famed Support system, which puts an especial emphasis on the bonds between your troops.) A Fire Emblem movie would be a slam dunk, actually—provided you could get over the name recognition problem first, which would be a lot easier if Zelda primes the pump for video-game fantasy.

There is so much to recommend Punch-Out!! as a film concept. The boxing movie is, of course, a long-cherished institution in Hollywood. And the franchise—which dates all the way back to the arcades in 1984, before moving to home consoles with a celebrated NES version in 1987—features some of the most intricate character designs in Nintendo’s whole library.And if a decent fraction of those designs weren’t, y’know, based on obvious national or racial stereotypes, we might be in business. To be fair, the most recent Punch-Out!! game, the 2009 Wii title, tried to dial things back slightly—or at least render them more cartoonish, and less outright offensive. But this is still a franchise that starts at “French people are bad at fighting and like baguettes” and works its way up from there; figuring out a way to make this work without getting (rightly) pilloried would whip up more of a sweat than following Doc Lewis’ bike on a jog through New York City.

This is another “so close it hurts” movie idea: Nintendo’s laid-back village simulator, Animal Crossing, has a massive fanbase, instantly recognizable characters, and even. What it doesn’t have is a plot, conflict, or any kind of stakes, and those are often considered important for movies. Worse, its whole premise is antithetical to the idea of ratcheting up tension at all; sure, there might be a story in Blathers the owl’s endless compulsion to collect bugs he hates in his ever-expanding museum. But unless we’ve got the Duplass brothers on hand to mumblecore the whole thing up, any expansions of Animal Crossing into the world of video might be better suited to the small screen, where viewers can more easily just … chill.