Arcade Lounge

Recently, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura (GI Joe and Transformers) and Gigi Pritzker have ‘optioned the rights’ (Hollywood parlance for, ‘found some cash and proffered it at some bemused but delighted rights holders’) to coin-op classic Space Invaders. Released in 1978 this early shooter pitted the player against waves of iconic alien craft; it became the most successful arcade game of the era and its huge popularity was widely credited with causing a coin shortage in Japan.

We have been scratching our heads here thinking how this simple game will inspire a 90 minute movie but we’ve decided it doesn’t really matter, because marketing, nostalgia and plenty of cool retro merchandise will ensure a healthy opening box-office.

We’ve also been having some fun coming up with plots for other 80′s coin-ops that would make great movies. My favourite so far is…..
Paperboy, The Movie (Atari, 1984)

‘Delivering’ fast-paced excitement and ‘first class’ entertainment, this nostalgic movie will remind film-goers what life was like when work meant clambering on to a BMX bike and throwing newspapers straight through the windows of badly drawn houses. And if runaway lawnmowers and savage dogs aren’t enough to contend with, our novice paperboy hero (I’m thinking Justin Bieber, naturally) must prepare for a confrontation with the Grim Reaper himself! Something to do with a dead letter office? We’ll patch those details in later.

We would love to hear any ideas you might have…..

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 at 11:03 am and is filed under stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.