Last we heard, it seemed unlikely that we would ever see a reboot of ‘The Last Starfighter‘ but the film’s original screenwriter, Jonathan Betuel (‘Freddy’s Nightmares,’ ‘Theodore Rex’), seems to disagree. Not only does he disagree, but he mentioned that he has been working with others who would like to see another film happen.

Seth Rogen once said that Spielberg himself told him he couldn’t get the rights to the film after he told him of his attempts to do so and if these two couldn’t pull it off, what chance did anyone else have? Well, Betuel seems to think that there is still life in this 1984 cult-classic though he seems a bit vague on if what he is putting together is a sequel, reboot, combination of the two, and isn’t clearing the air on how exactly the rights issue is being resolved.

Though I’ll share what I think he may have in mind below.

“This gets tied up in all kinds of stuff [regarding] what the next step is, and I’m working on that right now… There are a lot of things going on that will see the light of day. It’s complicated, it’s great, it’s a privilege, and it’s going to be taken care of… It’s good to be working with a team that wants to see it go. I think that the story deserves to continue.”

While I’m a fan of ‘The Last Starfighter’ having been 30 years since the original and it not having the mainstream success of other 80s science fiction pieces, I could almost see it having a proper reboot. Especially when Betuel had quite the intricate plan for the series:

“I had written a trilogy. It started as The Sword in the Stone, and then it became like Harry Potter … [you’d] follow the life of a young starfighter, where he awakens to a bigger world and bigger reality and learns it doesn’t come gift-wrapped.”

A trilogy involving space battles? That is something which I could really get behind right about now.

The original film involved a teenager named Alex who is the first person to beat an arcade game that it was actually a combination of a training and recruitment device. The Star League were using it to find people who could actually pilot a Starfighter and now Alex is their only hope for salvation. With the fall of the Arcade’s popularity in modern society, the same initial premise could still be used.

So why are the rights an issue? Well, it seems that Universal may still own both theatrical, home distribution and remake rights, Warner Brothers has international distribution rights and Betuel has the rights to make a sequel. Suddenly it becomes clear why a sequel instead of a straight on reboot might be what he has up his sleeve. However, that still doesn’t clear up potential distribution issues.

So will we see a long awaited sequel to ‘The Last Starfighter’? It’s hard to say but it looks as if the idea is still being explored. I think if they wanted to launch a new trilogy the best bet would be to see Alex coming back to Earth to recruit his brother or a new champion. This would allow for it to be a sequel and yet still pull together a whole new set of films that doesn’t require you to have seen the first movie.

Would you want to see ‘The Last Starfighter 2’ find a way to continue on from the original film and quite possibly launch a new series in the process? Is it too late to still continue on from a movie now 30 years old? Share your thoughts below!

Source: Yahoo Movies