In one of the stranger stories you'll read today, The Hollywood Reporter is, well, reporting this morning that Universal Studios has won the rights to the film version of the classic Atari video game Asteroids. And apparently "win" is the correct choice of words here, since the Reporter claims that it was a "four-studio bidding war" in order to land the rights. The film is to be written by relative newcomer Matthew Lopez and will be produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura, whose numerous credits include G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Doom.

The Hollywood Reporter is quick to point out that Asteroids is a game about a triangular ship blowing up other shaped objects, and "[a]s opposed to today's games, there is no story line or fancy world-building mythology". This means that, for better or worse, Matthew Lopez will essentially be creating an entirely new universe based on no real source material. However it's important to note that Universal already has films in pre-production based on the classic board games of Candyland and Battleship, so it's not exactly as though the studio needs a story to greenlight a project.

I'd like to say that I have mixed feelings on this announcement, but that wouldn't be true. The fact is, I can't see any possible way that an Asteroids movie could possibly be any good. They're going to tack on some kind of disaster movie elements, probably a gratuitous love story, and almost assuredly there will be some kind of CG character who will be painted as racist, culturally insensitive, or both. Anyone have good reason why I should be excited about this?

[Via superannuation]