Atari Founder to be Portrayed by Sprout DiCaprio in Movie Theatres
Then buzz it up
June 10th, 2008 at 11:00 by Ian Dransfield
We’re still waiting for Hollywood to come up with an original idea.
But living in the land of banality, we are forced to put up with the endless production line of sequels and remakes being churned out and violently forced down our throats.
But lest we forget, there is another market that involves little in the way of creativity: that of the ‘True Story’.
So what is this next true life tale of heroics, adventure, overcoming the odds and inspiring generations to better themselves that the gibbons in Hollywood Towers have lined up?
Lance Armstrong in ‘How I Beat the Snot Out of a Lot of Cancer and Won the Crap Out of Everything’? Barbara Streisand in ‘How and Why Have I Ever Been Popular?’? No. Of course not.
It’s Nolan Bushnell.
What do you mean ‘who’? He’s the Chuck E. Cheese Guy! But not only did Nolan put pizza parlours across America, ready to fatten up a generation of offspring, he also happened to be the founder of Atari - a company that helped a generation of offspring develop sedentary habits.
Fatty foods plus sitting around and barely moving: it’s a winning formula and one that the ‘Wood is ready to exploit for their new true-to-life story, Atari.
And so with the big question of who it’s about out of the way, we turn to the next query burning the back of throats across the globe.
Namely: who in the name of all that is holy will play Nolan Bushnell, king of the nerds? Who?! WHO?! Why, Sprout-Head himself, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio.
The guy that all the girls are in love with. The guy with all the looks, and some talent to back it up plus a wad of cash. Y’know, just like all the geeks…
The Hollywood Reporter sums it up:
Bushnell was an engineering student, puzzle-lover and game enthusiast (chess, Go, early computer games) who went from fixing broken pinball machines to launching Atari Corp., a video game manufacturer, in the early ’70s. Its first product was a little game called Pong that transfixed kids in suburban rec rooms across the country and led to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of video game sales. Within a few years, he sold the company to Warner Communications for $28 million.
While it certainly isn’t a bad tale of the American Dream, hecklerspray does wonder how this is going to transfer to the big screen. How much ‘artistic interpretation’ will be involved? Will Nolan’s quest to make America (and the world) fat be accurately portrayed? And how many car chases will there be?
Only time, a lack of decent ideas in Hollyweird and DiCaprio exquisite sprout-features will tell.
June 10th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
What a stupid column. Yes, Hollywood may lack original ideas, but that is largely because they seek out only very young writers who don’t have enough life experience to have much of anything worthwhile to say and the financial backers aren’t willing to take any real risks beyond rehashing a tried formula.
If you don’t know why a cinematic and recording legend like Barbra Streisand is popular, you don’t know enough about the indusry to write this column.
Why don’t you put up a few GOOD ideas of your own and add something positive to address the concern you have - or are you just content to bitch?