The game of Asteroids and Roland Emmerich’s career have something in common: they both consist solely of sitting in the middle of the action and blowing things up. Thus, it seems more than fitting that he would be asked to direct a feature adaptation of the Atari favorite.
According to Vulture, Asteroids is being put together by Universal and uber producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, and they’ve asked Emmerich to destroy giant space rocks in his post-destroying Earth phase.
Even purists and game fanatics can’t complain too much here, right? There’s no plot to the game. It could be the dumbest action movie of all time and still stay true to its subject matter (except for those who spent lonely nights coming up with stories about whomever was sitting in the 8-bit ship. This is cinematic obviousness, and it can only lead to greatness. Either Emmerich accepts, and we can expect more explosions, or he turns it down and proves that he really is over giant pyrotechnics.
As for plot, the story is about Earth people who have been relegated to living in an asteroid belt after the Earth’s destruction. They see their neighborhood non-Earthlings as friendly, but soon learn that it was actually their film’s director those non-Earthlings that blew up the planet. That’s dramatic irony. This thing is Shakespearean already! Emmerich is perfect.
Related Topics: Science Fiction
