Asteroids — The Movie?

From the same people who are intent on giving you big-screen movies based on the games “Battleship” and “Candyland” (yes, a movie based on the board game “Candyland”), now comes a movie based on the old arcade game … “Asteroids”. Yes, “Asteroids”. You know, that game where you pilot a triangle “ship” and has to shoot asteroids flying at you from all directions? Yup, that game. They’re making a movie about it. No, I’m totally serious here. Read on.

Via THR:

Universal has won a four-studio bidding war to pick up the film rights to the classic Atari video game “Asteroids.” Matthew Lopez will write the script for the feature adaptation, which will be produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura.

In “Asteroids,” initially released as an arcade game in 1979, a player controlled a triangular space ship in an asteroid field. The object was to shoot and destroy the hulking masses of rock and the occasional flying saucer while avoiding smashing into both.

As opposed to today’s games, there is no story line or fancy world-building mythology, so the studio would be creating a plot from scratch. Universal, however, is used to that development process, as it’s in the middle of doing just that for several of the Hasbro board game properties it is translating to the big screen, such as “Battleship” and “Candyland.”

Why didn’t they just write a script and call it something else? Then they wouldn’t have to spend all that money buying the rights to the game. The game itself had no storyline, so what is the — oh, nevermind. I’m just wasting my breath here.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who produced “Transformers” and the upcoming “G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra” will also be producing “Asteroids” for Universal.

Below: “Asteroids” in action. Now just imagine it with a storyline…