For decades, movie, TV and book characters, comic book heroes, celebrities, musicians and bands have adorned all manner of objects, articles and items, including slot machines. And while branded or themed slot games are no stranger to land casinos, they are a relatively new – and very welcome – addition to the global online and mobile casino scene.
It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that branded online slot games started to take off around the world, especially when everyone’s favourite comic book heroes started appearing across spinning reels. The firm responsible is online casino game vendor Cryptologic, which signed a ground-breaking licensing deal with Marvel Comics to create a host of branded slots.
The result of that agreement saw Cryptologic make many action-packed, high-paying slots that stayed true to their comic / movie roots. They include Captain America, The Punisher, Daredevil, Blade, Spider-Man Revelations, The Hulk, Silver Surfer, X-Men, Wolverine and Sub Mariner, each with big and bold features, plus engaging graphics and sound effects.
Not to be left out, many top Hollywood studios and TV, music and book companies were also hard at work licensing their most famous offerings to star in their own video slots. For instance, top titles from pioneering software firm Microgaming include Game of Thrones, Jurassic Park, Lara Croft Tomb Raider, Scrooge and Lara Croft Secret of the Sword.
Rival casino software developer Playtech has also impressed with Pink Panther, Rocky, The Sopranos, Kong, The Three Musketeers, Gladiator and Monty Python Spamalot. Swedish gaming powerhouse NetEnt has also come to the party with Scarface, Dracula, Motorhead, Guns N’ Roses, The Invisible Man, Jimi Hendrix and Creature from the Black Lagoon.
While hundreds of new movies are released each year, few become slots games, and even fewer used to entice players in the form of ‘no deposit free spin offers.’ This is why we have come up with a couple of suggested movie slots below. After you’ve finished perusing these suggestions, get the spins here if you’d like to play the best movie-themed video slots.
Movies Made to Be Made Into Slots
The list of movies big and small, mediocre and Oscar-winning, revered and long-forgotten is long and varied. And while very few are chosen to make the leap onto slot reels, we have two examples of movies we think would fit into the world of online slots like a glove:
The Silence of the Lambs Slots
Directed by Ted Demme and starring Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster, this 1991 thriller scared pretty much everyone who watched it then, as it still does today. Indeed, who can forget the chilling interactions between FBI cadet Agent Clarice Starling and psychopathic psychiatrist Dr Hannibal Lecter (who put me off boiled fava beans and Chianti for life).
Imagine Silence of the Lambs slots, a 5 reel, 5 level and 25 pay line extravaganza that will scare the pants off you if it doesn’t make you rich first. The game’s background would be of Dr Lector’s underground, dark and dank glass and stone-walled prison (insane asylum) cell, over which the video slot’s reels would spin to deliver their respective symbols and pays.
The game symbols would include the Masked Dr Lector (the Wild symbol), Agent Starling (the Scatter symbol), Buffalo Bill (the Bonus game symbol), Dr Chilton, Agent Crawford, Butterflies, a Deep Well, Night Vision Goggles and Dress Patterns.
When you spin the reels, the film’s theme song would play, and ramp up when you land a winning combination or activate a Bonus feature. As the Wild symbol, Dr Lector would substitute for all other symbols (except the Scatter) to help make winning combinations. Land 3, 4 or 5 Agent Starling symbols, and you’d be awarded 15, 20 or 25 Free Spins.
Land three Buffalo Bill symbols, and you’d trigger the slot’s Bonus feature. This would reveal Buffalo Bill’s underground lair where you’d be met with butterflies of varying shapes, sizes and colours clinging to the walls. You could pick three butterflies, which would either reveal a random value, a random multiplier (x3, x6 or x 9), or say “Leave Room” or “Change Room.”
Pick a Change Room butterfly, and you’d move to a different room in Bill’s lair with even more butterflies to choose from. The value of the butterflies would be increased with every new room you progress to. Now, if our proposed The Silence of the Lambs video slot game doesn’t send shivers racing up and down your spine, nothing in this world can scare you.
Horror themed slots are very popular – Do not play late at night!
Trains, Planes and Automobiles Slots
The world suffered a great loss when Canadian comedian / actor John Candy passed away at just 43. The good news, however, is that he’ll be remembered for his many great film roles, including in director John Hughes’ 1987 cult film, Trains, Planes and Automobiles. In that flick, he and a hilarious Steve Martin played purposefully mismatched travel companions.
In brief, the story follows Neal Page (Martin) and Del Griffith (Candy) two strangers trying to get home to Chicago from New York for Thanksgiving. Their flight plans, however, are ruined by bad weather, forcing them to seek out alternative modes of transport and routes home – together, hence the name of the film. The two start out on a rocky path but end up pals.
The comedic elements of this film would lend themselves perfectly to an online video slot game with 5 reels, 10 levels and 30 pay lines. The game’s background would be an image of the pair huddled in the back of an Oshkonoggin Cheese truck, over which the five sets of reels would spin. The movie’s upbeat music would act as the game’s background music.
In terms of symbols, Del Griffith would naturally be the Wild (that substitutes for all other symbols except the Bonus and Scatter), while Neal Page would be the slot’s Scatter (3, 4 or 5 activates 9, 12 or 18 Free Spins). The burnt out Station Wagon would be the Bonus symbol. Collect three of these and you’d activate the video slot’s travel-themed Bonus round.
This would consist of a map of the United States randomly dotted with pins showing trains, planes, cars or trucks. You’d choose 5 pins which would reveal a cash amount, a multiplier (2x, 3x or 4x) or the message “You’re Outta Gas!” in which case your bonus round would end and your winnings – once multiplied (if applicable ) –added to your account.
If you’re a fan of John Candy, you won’t find it hard to imagine his famous line “Heave Ho” accompanying every Wild symbol you land, or Steve Martin uttering “Two happy clams just whistling down the road” whenever you land 3 or more Scatters. This game would also be a tribute to John Hughes, one of the greatest American film directors of his generation.
Martin and Candy would make a hysterical slot
From The Liberty Bell to Terminator 2 Slots
Slots sure have come a long way since the earliest coin-paying slot, The Liberty Bell Slot Machine, was invented in the United States in 1895 by San Francisco-based mechanic Charles Fey. The game paid out winnings of 50c to players lucky enough to land three Liberty Bell symbols across the pay line, which was a worthy windfall in those days.
Pretty soon slot machines (or fruit machines as they were also called because so many sported fruit-bedecked reels) became all the rage in many part of the US were installed in social venues from bars to brothels, bowling alleys to barber shops and everywhere in between. But the best was yet to come with the birth of gaming cities like Las Vegas.
As Las Vegas – America’s original ‘Sin City’ – evolved in leaps and bounds, so too did the slot machine industry. With an ever-growing number of slot manufacturers competing to supply the latest, most entertaining slot games to land casinos in Las Vegas and beyond, slot machine technology was also improving as were their themes, symbols and pay-outs.
Enter the era of themed or branded slot machines, where games based on popular films, TV shows, books, characters and celebrities that were licensed to the slot game manufacturers. The concept was and still is a simple one; slot players tend to spend more money playing games with themes based on their favourite TV shows, movies or comic books.
But as popular and successful as branded slots were then, they were propelled to greater heights with the advent of online casinos and later mobile casinos. Remote or online gambling spawned an exciting new generation of electronic or software-based online slot game developers, who until now continue to push the ‘virtual slot game envelope.’
Not only are today’s slot games available to play on most platforms (desktop, laptop and mobile) which run all manner of operating systems (like Windows, iOS and Android), but they’re faster, better looking (thanks to 3D style graphics and animations), more stable, and crammed with more high-paying features – including bonus games – than ever before.
The evolution of slot games from the ground-breaking mechanical Liberty Bell to the high-tech online video slots like Terminator 2 that can be played 24/7, 365-days-a-year from just about anywhere in the world is nothing less than fascinating, and we can only wonder what amazing technological advances lie ahead for this globally popular casino game.
