If you follow my news links at all, you may have seen the article about the announcement of a live-action movie based on the arcade classic Joust. Check this out.
"Joust is an arcade game that's as old as Pac-Man and has global awareness," said Cerenzie. "We took one element of the game and the brand itself and built a whole new world around it for the film."
Cerenzie calls the new script by Marc Gottlieb "Gladiator meets Mad Max." The film is set 25 years in the future and includes a Las Vegas suspended in mid-air.
"We've updated the game into a commercial, tent pole movie," said Cerenzie. "Marc has done an amazing job in creating a tantalizing and filmic world based on the original game."
"This film is the type of action-packed story that appeals to all four quadrants of the movie-going public and we are excited to be in the Midway Games business once again," said Peters.
"You need these kids to come in on Friday with a film's opening today because they're texting their friends right after the movie and you no longer have until Sunday," said Cerenzie.
Wow. I don't even know where to begin heckling. Let's go with top-down. Global awareness? I'm sure that everywhere from Columbia to Iceland, Joust is a household name. They took one element of the game and built a whole world around it? Which element? The flying ostrich mounts? The pterodactyl? The fact that whomever is vertically higher automatically wins? My bet is on that last one. Las Vegas suspended in midair? Twenty five years from now?? Hoe ridiculous can you get? Appeals to "all four quadrants of the movie-going public"? Which four are those? Eighties enthusiasts, the beknighted quadrant, classic video gamers, and flying ostrich mounts? Lastly, they're saying that they've got to draw in huge audiences the first night because after that, word will get out about how horrible the film is and nobody will go to see it. Did I read that right?
So, it would be very hard for me to come up with a movie idea more easily ridiculed than this one, but I'm going to try. Which classic arcade games can I use?
Let's see... In a dark future in which genetic experiments gone awry have produced monsters that roam the surface world, humanity is forced to retreat into deep caverns. But soon those monsters follow us underground, and our only defense are The Diggers. Armed only with ranged airpump injectors, these valiant men and women must patrol dark underground tunnels and destroy the monsters before they destroy us.
So that was Dig Dug. My god - the thing actually sounded almost plausible. I thought it'd be much sillier. Let me try another one.
Karnov is an arcade classic that fans of video games have been exposed to since 1987. We've taken this charismatic fire-breathing east-Russian ex-circus strongman and built a story around him that is half Indiana Jones and half Harry Potter. The film is set during the cold war and includes a climactic battle against ostrich-riding skeletal warriors.
I was going to try one for Bubble Bobble, but I'm just no good at this, so I'm going to stop here. Still, I'm not sure when these guys will get it. There has never been a decent movie that was based on a videogame, unless you count Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which I thought was actually fairly decent. And now I hear that they're making a movie based off of Castle Wolfenstein, which I'm certain will be horrible. I'm just waiting now for the day when Uwe Boll makes a movie based off of Burgertime.