A couple of months ago, we brought you news that popular 80’s video-game “Missile Command” was being developed for the silver screen.
The adaptation of the game took one step closer to becoming reality this week with news that the project has found a studio home.
20th Century Fox has agreed to produce the Atari video-game film.
Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, the screenwriters behind the upcoming “Flash Gordon” remake, have been hired to pen the “Missile Command” script for producers Peter Chernin and Dylan Clark.
The game was created by programmer Dave Theurer and released in 1980. The Cold War setting sees players attempting to defend their cities from a missile attack.
So how long before James Cameron disparages this movie as he did “Battleship?”
MC is a different kind of game because it tells a story through its mechanics. You have a fixed number of cities you must defend with a smaller number of bases using a finite number of counter-missile against an infinite number of incoming nukes. The point of the game is that you WILL loose eventually no matter what you do so the object becomes one of attrition. You have to hold out against the inevitable for as long as possible.
So do you try to save everyone for a shorter amount of time or do you sacrifice a few cities so the rest can survive longer? I can see that as great drama in a movie. Just as long the ending is the same as the game: a massive graveyard with the words “The End” with a mushroom cloud in the background.