posted 01-14-2011 05:02 PM                

Atari Bringing Arcade Game Missle Command to the Big Screen



Source: Firstshowing.net

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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?

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