Bethesda is not interested in making movies, but will consider it if Peter Jackson is involved

An Elder Scrolls or Fallout movie adaptation is not something Bethesda is looking to do, but a certain director may get it to reconsider.

Bethesda holds some of gaming's most valuable and loved franchises, but the publisher has yet to dabble into turning any of them into movies or TV shows.

According to Bethesda VP of marketing Pete Hines, the publisher would rather just make games, as you never really have full creative control over a movie based on your game.

"We get asked to all the time, but the short version is; we make games," he told Finder.

"And this conversation usually falls into the camp of; are we going to let some other person do their own interpretation of what Fallout is, or Elder Scrolls is, or Dishonored is? Or are we going to hold onto it and let the developers be the only ones that are able to say, 'this is what Fallout is, or Elder Scrolls, or Wolfenstein, or whatever?' So we want our developers to decide what our franchises are about and not a movie director, or producer or studio."

Hines added that even in cases where movie studios promise to give IP holders full control over the script, it's never completely true. "Well, I don’t know anybody who actually has total control over the film adaptation of their video game," he said.

"If you did, why would you not just make it yourself? Of course the film studio and the scriptwriter and the director are going to have a tonne of say. They will have their own vision."

Hines could have this conversation under one condition, though, if Lords of the Rings and The Hobbit director Peter Jackson was involved. "I think if Peter Jackson turned up at Todd Howard’s office and said, 'I want to do Elder Scrolls, well that would be a pretty serious conversation you would have to listen to," he explained.

Hines then pointed out that Bethesda's board of directors has plenty of Hollywood experience, citing Jerry Bruckheimer, Leslie Moonves and Harry Sloan among them, to say that the publisher will know where to go should it ever want to make a movie or a TV show.