Another year, another writer on the movie adaptation of the classic 1979 arcade game Asteroids.
In 2009 writer Matt Lopez (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Bedtime Stories) was put on the job, with Roland Emmerich (Independence Day) attached as director. A year ago it was reported that producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura hired Evan Spiliotopoulos (who has mainly written a bunch of direct-to-video Disney animated sequels and, inexplicably, the upcoming Wanted 2) to rewrite Lopez’s script. Now, Variety is reporting that Jez Butterworth — no relation to the syrup — has been tapped to do another rewrite. Butterworth has written Fair Game, The Last Legion and Birthday Girl, the latter he also directed.
Why studios insist on pursing film adaptations of arcade and board games with little story — di Bonaventura is also pursuing an adaptation of Space Invaders — makes little sense to me, especially since Universal was ultimately disappointed with the grosses of Battleship, based on the Milton Bradley board game. I don’t see how a movie version Asteroids would be much different, and I’m assuming that’s why this project has had three different writers in four years.
In any event, I thought Michael Bay already made this movie and called it Armageddon. Maybe instead of making Asteroids the producers could sue Michael Bay for plagiarism. That seems like a better investment.
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