One Battle Royale After Another
Indie-adjacent films like One Battle After Another and Sinners are turning to Fortnite – why?
Fishstick and Leonardo DiCaprio walk onto an island together… sounds like the start of a bad joke. Or some cursed Reddit fan fiction.
But no, it’s actually a game on Fortnite.
Did anyone expect Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another to appear in Fortnite? Probably not. What about Ryan Coogler’s Sinners? Also no. And yet, there they are. And they’re not going to be the last.
What business does an indie-adjacent film have showing up on Fortnite? A lot of Letterboxd folk are likely screaming ABSOLUTELY NOTHING at their screens right now (I kinda did too).
But things are changing.
Studios like A24 and Mubi have rewritten the rulebook on what counts as “indie” or “mainstream,” blurring the lines to make box-office behemoths that feed both the chin-scratching cinephile and the popcorn crowd. So much so that Marvel films are now borrowing tactics from A24. Meanwhile, indie-adjacent films like One Battle After Another and Sinners are borrowing from juggernauts like Star Wars.
Star Wars and Fortnite make sense: two mega-fandoms, one giant battle, a roster of intergalactic icons — the crossovers make sense. What about Michael B. Jordan shooting zombies alongside a guy in a banana suit? Less obvious, but undeniably scroll-stopping, which is kind of the point.
Fortnite’s plastic avatars and hyper-rendered worlds are a far cry from the layered costumes, heavy lighting, and tonal subtlety of a Coogler or PTA film. But that dissonance becomes the message. Running around as Leo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson somehow brings you closer to the goofiness of the character he plays. Mowing down zombies in Sinners: Survive The Night as Gut Bomb provides the kind of comic relief people crave after the film’s slow-burn dread. In other words, these studios are building worlds around their films for audiences who might have missed them otherwise.
It also shows how fragmented the traditional film-promo circuit has become. Once upon a time, it was simple: trailer → festival → talk-show → interview → release. Now it’s flexing music cred with Nardwuar, bro-ing out with Theo Von, clowning with Brittany Broski, riding a Lime bike onto a red carpet, and somehow calling Ohio’s win over Miami on College Game Day — then a film release (that is, if you’re Timothée Chalamet promoting A Complete Unknown). In this scattershot ecosystem, Fortnite suddenly feels logical
Video-game adaptations of films aren’t new. GoldenEye 007 on the N64, often called one of the best games ever made, was an adaptation. Some games even outshine their films: X-Men Origins: Wolverine scored higher with fans for sticking closer to the comics.
Traditionally, studios rolled these games out as sustain tactics, ways to keep profits rolling after the credits. Now the funnel’s flipped. Games arrive before the films, and it’s not just the blockbusters doing it. A24’s got arcade-style big-button cabinets landing ahead of The Smashing Machine. The energy of the film channeled into one cathartic button-slam. These moves acknowledge a truth: gaming rules the entertainment hierarchy for younger audiences.
And while even I’ll admit that seeing technically brilliant films like One Battle After Another and Sinners rendered in Fortnite feels weird, there’s one silver lining you can always trust games to deliver: responsive exploration. Something static media like film can’t match. On One Battle After Another’s creator island, you can spot nods to Anderson’s entire filmography — Phantom Thread graffiti, Magnolia Drive road signs, a Boogie Nights star, a “Licorice Pie” store (Licorice Pizza). Emerging fans are learning his world through play.
Maybe it wasn’t how PTA envisioned it, but… Goddamn it. Viva la revolución.