Fans of long-irrelevant franchise tie-ins rejoice! Atari has Missile Command movie rolling at last!

But you know, it could be cool.

Above: The screenshot was so dull we had to add Brian Blessed on fire to keep your attention

The license is set up as a big-budget actioner at 20th Century Fox, an aptly-named studio, as it was exactly 20 years back into the last century that Missile Command was a big deal. Writing duties fall to Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, the chaps also behind the plannedFlash Gordon reboot. No further details as of yet. But seriously, how the hell is this going to work?

The original game was a psudo-Cold War shooter/tactical defence game which featured no people and operated on a single screen. The Cold War no longer works as a plot-line, and media-savvy modern audiences demand things like characters and more than one screen. This film could run into issues.

Should Fox make it ultra-athentic, to ensure the kind of audiencegoodwill that can only be derived when a hardcore '80s gamers walks out of cinema, smiling radiantlywith analmost sexually satisfiedsigh of "That was just like Missile Command" onhis lips? Or should it just make a war film with a lot of missile strikes and acknowledge the fact that 90% of this movie's audience won't know or care what Missile Command is? Either way, Atari makes some money, so I don't suppose it really matters to anyone.

What do you reckon? Inspired source of side-revenue, or just batshit mental naivete on every level?

[Source: The Celebrity Cafe]

Jan 12, 2011

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