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Atari Bringing Arcade Game Missile Command to the Big Screen
by Alex Billington
January 11, 2011
Source: Variety
Following the upcoming Battleship and Asteroids adaptations, Atari has hired writers Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama to adapt the classic 80s arcade game Missile Command into a feature film. Producer Peter Chernin (Rise of the Apes) is developing the project at his own production company, with Atari exec producing. Sharpless & Sazama recently wrote the Flash Gordon reboot and worked on Dracula Year Zero. Missile Command, which hit in 1980, is one of the simplest games involving firing counter-missiles from the ground to destroy incoming missile attacks from the air. How that will be made into a movie, I have no idea?
There couldn't be a more perfect time to reference a recent James Cameron quote that's spreading around the web. Via Screen Rant: "We have a story crisis they want to make the Battleship game into a film. This is pure desperation." Exactly! And yet here we are, reporting even more depressing news that a classic 8-bit game that involves defending our country by shooting missiles with a trackball is the latest basis behind a big budget action movie that's now in the works. This better be like Red Dawn or else I don't know what the heck to expect. I don't even know if they'll set it in the Cold War or update it to be contemporary, but either way this definitely seems like a desperate attempt to capitalize on a brand that, well, hasn't been around for the last 20 years. Does anyone think a Missile Command movie might actually turn out okay?
Reader Feedback - 8 Comments
3
Studio Execs: 1993's Super Mario Bros. wasn't that bad. Videogame movies are gold!
voodoo2 on Jan 12, 2011
4
what ever happened to creativity?
Jlware29 on Jan 12, 2011
5
if you have a good writer and director, you can make a good movie about a cheesecake. so... it depends...
ya'is on Jan 12, 2011
6
The only time I can remember someone successfully working in Missile Command into a storyline was on the TV show Chuck. The show is silly and off the wall enough to not only use the game as a way to stop an actual missile attack, but incorporate Rush's 'Tom Sawyer' as the key to reaching the kill screen.
Joycee on Jan 12, 2011
7
If any game should become a movie it should be Joust. Flying ostriches with knights on their backs with the occasional pterodactyl. That'd be awesome.
CEO on Jan 12, 2011
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