Even for the age of unlikely remakes and strange adaptations, this one is sort of a doozy, but see if you can follow along: The recently released documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters — which looks at the bewilderingly intense real-life rivalry between the two men battling over the scoring record for Donkey Kong — has already been established as one of the summer’s most pleasant critical surprises, shooting up to 97 percent on the Tomatometer. And now the filmmakers want to follow it up with…a King of Kong dramatization?
According to MTV Movies, it’s true — the article doesn’t name a studio, but apparently an outline for the project has been approved, and a first draft for the script is imminent. And when it comes to casting the film’s two main roles (longtime Donkey champ Billy Mitchell and challenger Steve Wiebe), director Seth Gordon and producer Ed Cunningham hope to bring out the big guns. From the article:
“My first idea for Billy was Johnny Depp,” Gordon said of the famously mullet-ed arcade legend. “Ed Norton I thought would be good. It’s really not about the hair, it’s about the eyes. It’s got to be a real actor.” For Wiebe, Cunningham said he’s “partial to Greg Kinnear.” Gordon suggested Nathan Fillion from the movie “Waitress.”
But wait, there’s more! Gordon and Cunningham would also like to arrange a pay-per-view showdown between Wiebe and the famously reclusive Mitchell. Ridiculous? Sure, but it’d probably be more entertaining than some of those 30-second Tyson fights we ponied up for in the ’80s, right?
Source: MTV Movies
