Movie Versions of Classic Video Games in The Works

Remember the arcade game Asteroids? Where you flew a tiny triangular spaceship around an asteroid field while blasting away at asteroids and enemy spacecraft?

What about Missile Command? Where you protected a planet's bases by launching missiles into the sky to knock out enemy missiles?

If you do remember those games, you're probably pretty old, at least if you remember playing them in actual arcades or at home on your Atari.

But apparently you are right in line for a demographic Hollywood is attempting to tap into, those in their 30s and 40s.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a movie version of Asteroids is currently in pre-production after Universal Pictures earlier this year won a four-studio bidding battle over the game originally released in 1979. As the film is still in pre-production, there have been no public releases on a possible plot nor information on who will star in the movie.

A film version of Missile Command is not quite that far along yet. The Los Angeles Times has reported Atari, the company which released Missile Command in 1980, is still shopping around the game, pitching it to various studios in hopes of finding interest. Will they? Time will tell, but the studios might be waiting to see how well Asteroids will do at the box office before biting on another arcade classic.