Why Is ‘Twisted Metal’ A TV Show? It Should Be A Movie

It’s a very interesting day and age when it comes to adapting a games, comics, animation, and other media into live action. Streaming companies have to make a decision whether or not they are going to film a series or make a movie. There are many pros and cons to both, not all of which are artistic in nature. A lot of times, companies make corporate and logistical choices about what these properties are going to be. But that should be put on the back burner in order to focus on what type of release would best serve the material in question. For Twisted Metal, an argument could be made that it should have been a film rather than a television show.

Starring Anthony Mackie, Twisted Metal is based on a video game series that has a strong fan base with many installments. It’s essentially about vehicular combat. Characters drive around and try to destroy each other in a tournament. Although the end of the first season introduced the concept of the tournament, the season itself wasn’t about this at all. It had the setting of a post-apocalyptic world where a single driver is tasked with driving across the country on a delivery mission.

Because of this first season’s premise, there were many opportunities to create multiple episodes about the journey and the characters who live in this dangerous world. But a lot of these post-apocalyptic stories tread similar territory: a journey across dangerous lands. The way Twisted Metal sets itself apart is by focusing on vehicle mayhem. And the show absolutely had some of this, but every single episode couldn’t focus on the same thing. It had to fill out the scenes with lots of drama. In which case, the story might have been served better if it cut out a lot of this time and simply hyper focused the action to an extreme degree. So it’s quite possible that a film would have better suited the story and the fans craving for the action that Twisted Metal is all about.

Twisted Metal is now streaming on Peacock.