Can a PvZ fan film get copyrighted?

General question I wanna ask, cus when I think copyright I think of: “using someone’s own art/characters/etc to make money for themselves without crediting or mentioning the owner.” I’m asking because I’ve seen people make short animations online and there was this one guy that made an irl mini PvZ live action movie without crediting EA/PopCap with the PvZ characters. Plus I heard that there was supposed to be a PvZ movie that Dreamworks was making and that it apparently was canceled, idk if that’s a rumor or not, and I wanna know if it would be okay if I were to make a fan movie for one of my favorite childhood games of all time, I would credit the owner of the franchise, make 0 profit from it (by turning off monetization) and it would be made by a small group of the PvZ community that would be willing to come together and work on an unofficial PvZ movie just as an appreciation of our favorite game. Plus it would be free advertising for the entire PvZ franchise. I’m also asking this because I’ve seen other communities come together and make movies of their favorite games, some great examples are the fnaf “a meeting with” series, the many Warhammer fan series and the Team Fortress Emesis Blue movie. If I were to make the movie and post it on YouTube I wouldn’t want to get, not only myself, but the entire group of people that volunteered on helping produce the fan film, into a massive lawsuit😭