Hollywood or someone has tried over and over to make interactive movies a thing, starting way back in the 1960s. Later on, the idea was to marry the concepts of movies and video games, which had to be a winner because kids loved video games. There are quite a few ways to do this, each being expensive and risky and a lot of work, but everyone who made the attempt was sure their interactive movie would be the breakthrough that changed cinema forever. What could possibly go wrong?
The 1995 film project Mr. Payback: An Interactive Movie was launched amid high hopes. It was aimed at kids and teens, who already played video games. It was rude and crude and even had some bankable talent involved. The plot was designed to channel the audience's baser instincts and lust for revenge. And it was a terrific flop. I'm sure you can imagine some reasons why it didn't work, but there were a lot of valid reasons. Eventually, movie producers realized that people didn't like having to share their plot options with a crowd of strangers when they could have total control of their games at home. Read about the disaster that was Mr. Payback at Mental Floss.