Space Invaders, the classic 1980’s arcade game, may finally head to the big screen. The Hollywood Reporter reports that Transformers producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura and Odd Lot Entertainment’s Gigi Pritzker are at work on the adaptation. The Guinness Book of World Records calls Space Invaders the most popular arcade game of all time.
Space Invaders was created in 1978 by Tomohiro Nishikado and Taito Games. The game was licensed to Bally/Midway in the early 1980’s and, according to Wikipedia, grossed more than 2 billion dollars in quarters by 1982. Space Invaders has since been licenced for Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii while retaining the original graphics that have become pop culture icons.
The story of Space Invaders, such as it is in the modest arcade setting, has alien invaders inching their way toward earth while a lone gunman moves back and forth behind various barriers shooting and blowing up as many of the aliens as possible before they reach earth. At a certain point a larger alien ship enters the fray and moves toward the shooter who must blow it up before it reaches the gun.
Lorenzo Di Bonaventura is one of the most active producers in Hollywood with credits on each of the Transformers movies as well as G.I Joe: Rise of Cobra and four films currently in production or including Man on a Ledge with rising stars Elizabeth Banks and Sam Worthington and the mob thriller Delivering Gen with Sons of Anarchy and The Shield creator Kurt Sutter.
Gigi Pritzker’s Oddlot Entertainment recently found success at the Cannes Film Festival with the thriller Drive starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan. Drive was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn who recently mentioned he was looking to direct his first blockbuster. Refn was talking about a possible adaptation of Wonder Woman but with his alignment with Oddlot, is Space Invaders out of the question? We shall see.
