If you thought film versions of Monopoly and Battleship represented the dirt-covered floor of the basement in Hollywood’s withered creative brain, think again: GameDaily is reporting that plans are afoot to bring Joust to a theater near you.
Yes, Joust. The game to which children of the ’80s sacrificed untold quarters. If you’re somehow unfamiliar with the 25-year-old arcade classic, the “plot” is easy to describe: You play as a knight who flaps around on an ostrich (or emu), using your lance to poke opposing knights off their buzzards. Without getting into too much detail, you also need to eat eggs, avoid pterodactyls, and watch out for the troll that lives in the molten lava below.
Sounds like a fantastic idea for a film, right? Christine Peters and Michael Cerenzie, the producers who recently founded CP Productions, think so. What’s more, they think other games deserve the same treatment. According to the report, CP’s projects will focus on the “under-25 filmgoer.” (Frankly, if we were under 25, we’d find this deeply offensive.) From the article:
“We’ve updated the game into a commercial, tent pole movie,” said Cerenzie. “Marc has done an amazing job in creating a tantalizing and filmic world based on the original game.”
“This film is the type of action-packed story that appeals to all four quadrants of the movie-going public and we are excited to be in the Midway Games business once again,” said Peters.
“You need these kids to come in on Friday with a film’s opening today because they’re texting their friends right after the movie and you no longer have until Sunday,” said Cerenzie.
Cerenzie also describes the film’s script, written by Marc Gottlieb, as “Gladiator meets Mad Max.” It takes place in the future, and involves a floating Las Vegas. Of course it does.
On the bright(ish) side, the Joust movie will be launched alongside a graphic novel, to be published by DC Comics and written by Steven Elliot Altman. The game isn’t the most obvious starting point for a graphic novel, but it might actually be sort of cool. The movie, on the other hand, sounds like it might be the worst idea in the world, and was clearly inspired by the kind of bottom-line thinking outlined in the following quote from the article:
“We’ll cap each film with a moderate budget and bring in awareness with games, graphic novels, and toys,” said Peters. “If you look at what Transformers did this summer, it reached well beyond the P&A. Today’s kids grew up with games and graphic novels and we have that type of fan base to tap into with these projects.”
CP hopes to have Joust wrapped by next June. The article says “several A-list directors” — presumably including Uwe Boll, Paul W.S. Anderson, and Fred Savage — are interested in the project.
Source: GameDaily
