News > Joust on the Big Screen?

Written by David Morgan

Joust, the classic arcade game that debuted in 1982, might be getting the big screen treatment, says GameDaily. Christine Peters and Michael Cerenzie want to produce a feature film adaptation of the arcade game in which a knight rides and ostrich (or an emu, if you're player 2), kills rival knights that are on buzzards, then destroys their eggs, and tries to avoid being eaten by a pterodactyl. Yes, somehow they want to make THAT into a movie.

Cerenzie calls the script by Marc Gottlieb "Gladiator meets Mad Max," trying to remind us of good films, thus dodging the question "isn't this going to be terrible?" The producers (collectively called CP Productions) say they've taken one element of the classic arcade game and have built a whole world around it. The film takes place 25 years in the future and includes a Las Vegas suspended in air. Do we really think that by 2032 we'll be able to levitate cities? We've already got an energy crisis on our hands.

The GameDaily article reports that the film is expected to wrap by June 2008 and that several A-list directors are interested. I suppose it depends on who's on your A-list. I'm sure Uwe Boll and Brett Ratner would give this a shot.