Prince of Persia will make a decent Arabian, “A 1001 Tales” type of story, where the hero is imprisioned, have to engage in sword fights, avoid falling tiles and spikes and do a lot of climbing to find the princess within a time limit.
Golden Axe is a good bet as a movie now, with all the fantasy mania started by Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and what-else-is-there-come. Beside, it combines sex appeal (hulky barbarians with scantily-clad amazon fighter) with good-old-fashion violence plus special dazzling effects (thundestorm magic, dragons from the sky etc.)
On the other hand, Shinobi will be a good espionage, stealth thriller in which our good ninja has to double-jump over enemies, and throwing shruikens at enemies with deadly precision. To feed the frezny, or as a fellow-up, Ninja Gaiden can be thrown into the lot.
Arkanoid makes a good animation too, especially the final stage (for the NES) where you have to fight Doh (the big bell-like creature hanging in the middle of nowhere while spitting where seems to be french [freedom?] fries at you)
Gradius or Raiden can be modelled after the Top Guns movie. Gradius is a plus because you can offer to be politcally correct (fighting against aliens never seem to offend much people) and we can have scenes in which the heroes dives toward power-ups!
For more ‘in-depth games’, I would nominate King’s Quest or Space Quest, dependings which genre (fantasy or science-fic) tickles the audience’s fancy. Heck, Gabriel Knight would be cool as a horror flick - just imagine the scene when the bulter tears his heart out!
For the more family-friendly genre, we have Sonic and Tails, animals environmentalist stacked up against Dr Robotnik’s hordes of robots. Or perhaps a Final Fantasy I animation using the same 8-bit palette and art style from NES. That will be a blast from the past!
Just for the record, I think it will be a very,very, good idea if Diablo (the original, not part 2), Warcraft or Metal Gear Solid are made into movies. They both have stories that translate well into the big screen, especially MGS.
Wel, just my two cent worth.