While comic books seem to be the most popular places that Hollywood goes to for adaptation materials these days, video games certainly are not being overlooked. With things like ‘Assassin’s Creed’, ‘Halo’, ‘Gears of War’, ‘Tomb Raider’, and even ‘Ratchet & Clank’ getting the big screen treatment, there’s no shortage of good stories just begging to be adapted.
And then there’s ‘Asteroids’. Apparently there has been a film in the works for some time now, but there’s one small problem that I see with that: There’s no story in the game. All it involves is a spaceship shooting asteroids to stay alive and advance to the next level. Regardless, ‘Transformers’ and ‘G.I. Joe’ producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura has opted to take on the challenge of bringing the recognizable name of ‘Asteroids’ to a theater near you.
In an interview to promote his latest film ‘Red 2’, the producer spoke about the Atari video game adaptation at Universal, which is supposed to follow “two estranged brothers that must team up to save Earth from an alien race”, and what first drew him to being a part of it:
“It just seems like that’s big. Like, what? Asteroids? That’s big. What’s going on up there? When I look at that project, that’s what I think about it, is I think about the scale of it and I think about the possibility of it.”
I mean, it’s not unheard of to start with a title and then work from there. Many stories have been born that way, but I dunno about successful Hollywood blockbusters. Look at what happened with ‘Battleship’…
He then went on to explain that they’re not going for some sort of disaster movie. Instead, the classification that he uses sounds like something out of David Bowie’s repertoire:
“It’s not a disaster movie, yeah, if we’re successful at getting it made. It’s much more of a space opera. It’s like a great sci-fi movie if we get it done right. It is not at all what people think it is. People think, ‘Oh, the asteroid’s gonna hit the earth,’ and I have no interest in doing that. That’s been done exceedingly well before. No, this takes place in an asteroid belt, the whole movie.”
For the whole interview, you can check out the video below:
While I’m not completely sold on the idea of a movie based on the game ‘Asteroids’, I do appreciate di Bonaventura’s enthusiasm for the project. Who knows? Maybe he’ll prove me wrong and put out quite an epic movie. But until that happens, I won’t exactly be holding my breath.
What do you think about an ‘Asteroids’ movie? With a renewed interest in video arcades and retro games, do you think there’s an audience for this particular project? Or do you think that it’ll crash and burn like a novice stepping up to the joystick for the first time? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Screenrant
