When Universal won the bidding war to make Atari’s classic arcade game Asteroids into an actual feature film, they had a different regime running things. But now two years later they still have this property about a game with a capital letter A floating in deep space shooting lasers (more like periods) at rocks and flying saucers. Having already put in an investment to acquire the rights, Universal is looking to turn this game into a big-budget spectacle with a director who, next to Michael Bay, is the king of reeking havoc and destruction: Roland Emmerich.
Emmerich, who has destroyed Planet Earth three times already with Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012, has been offered to direct Asteroids with Transformers: Dark of the Moon producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. Race to Witch Mountain scribe Matt Lopez is handling the screenplay.
Fans of 2012 and Emmerich’s other industrial-sized destruction epics will be disappointed to learn that Asteroids is set after the end of the world, where aliens have won. Human civilization still clings to life in colonies within an asteroid belt. The survivors thought the aliens were rescuing them of Earth’s destruction, but soon find out the truth.
While I should be saying “are you serious?” what I’m really thinking is “I’m not surprised.” With Hollywood wanting to make board game properties Battleship, Ouija and Monopoly into feature films, an Asteroids flick seems like the next logical step. Soon we’ll have Pong, Paperboy and, if there is a God, a pseudo-sequel to Gleaming the Cube based on the video game Skate or Die.