Atari's Asteroids - the movie
 

Asteroids could soon be landing on a cinema screen near you, with Universal announcing plans to make a film version of the classic Atari videogame.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio won a four-way bidding war for the property, which initially hit arcades in 1979 and revolved around a spaceship attempting to navigate an asteroid field.

That was pretty much it for plot, so screenwriter Matthew Lopez (Bedtime Stories, Race to Witch Mountain) has his work cut out in terms of scripting.

Universal's won the bidding for feature rights to the vintage Atari vidgame "Asteroids" and set up the project with Lorenzo di Bonaventura.

Fox and Sony were also bidders on the project.

Atari launched "Asteroids" in 1979, and the 2D game became one of the most widely known titles as the vidgame biz blossomed in the decade that followed.

Di Bonaventura's recent projects include "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," "Imagine That" and the upcoming "G.I. Joe" for Par.

They really needed to buy the name of a video game in order to make a movie about a spaceship trying to avoid asteroids?

Oh, now that's about stupid.

i just hope they keep the cheezy sound effects!

I'd rather see the vector graphics, personally...

Now THAT would be worth watching.

Easy enough. Hotshot pilot guy is the only one to escape an exploding ship which goes up for no apparent reason, the only place to flee was aboard a strange triangular shaped ship they'd bought aboard after receiving an alien distress signal from it. Systems come online and the moment the threat (what blew up the "new" ship and was the basis of the distress call) becomes clear on a little screen.
Said little screen features vector graphics, which of course would then go holographic or something - it's asteroids, all around him.

Really how they'd work out a plot BEYOND that...call in Michael Bay I suppose.

But hey, for me - I've seen Armageddon and The Last Starfighter - they've pretty much got this covered for me.

he'd run across some hot scantily clad meagan fox on one of the asteroids and . . .

A frog with a dream...
("you can't do it, frogs can't cross a busy street!"
A frog who won't surrender...
("you don't know what a frog can do, dad, you never tried!")
A frog whose time it is to shine...
("GET ON THE LOG! THERE's ALLIGATORS!")
("He's gonna make it! Dodge the truck! Dodge the truck!")
A frog who fights...for love!
("I love you, Krystal!")
Shia La Boeuf is... FROGGER!

Ha- that's hilarious.

COMING this SUMMER!

P-DIDDY is Fed UP
He's FIGHTING Mad

This DIG has been DUG!

DIG DUG the movie

When Universal announced plans to turn the classic arcade game Asteroids into a movie, there was much head-scratching within the geek community as to what shape a film based on the property's rather slim premise would take.

Intrigued by the prospect, IGN exclusively quizzed producer Lornezo di Bonaventura on the subject while he was visiting London to publicize G.I. Joe, and he was extremely forthcoming on the subject.

"It's funny because people say there's nothing in the game, but that's not entirely right" he explained. "I was attracted to Asteroids, plain and simple, because I think what it tells you is that there's going to be this big thing in space."

"We've crafted a really strong, deep mythology for the thing. Without divulging too much about it, it's two lead characters - two brothers - who have to go through a seminal experience to figure out their relationship, against this huge backdrop."

But what of the title's point-and-shoot gameplay? "Well you'd better have some guys in spaceships blowing stuff up" he continued, "or else you haven't honoured the fun of Asteroids."