Whoa, whoa, whoa…can we slow down a minute? Video game movies are nothing new, but we totally didn't even realize that the classic quarter eater "Rampage" even had a backstory. But alas it does – we guess when we were so busy pumping our allowance into the machine, eager to smash some shit up, we just skimmed over the details. At any rate, someone in Hollywood is going to weave that tale of mutants gone wild into a movie.
With two different Frankenstein movies on the way, and Guillermo Del Toro's "Pacific Rim" getting ready to roll, it looks like monsters are the new zombies, which were the new vampires in Hollywood (try and keep up). THR reports that "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Final Destination" producer John Rickard has an adaptation of the game set up at New Line and is now looking for a writer or writers to bring it to life. The game itself centered a three humans — George, Lizzie and Ralph — who are experimented on at Scumlabs (of course) with the side effect being that they each get turned into monsters: a King Kong style gorilla, a Godzilla aping lizard and a werewolf respectively. And then, over the course of 128 days (for whatever reason) they wreak havoc across America, hence the title. The game started at your local arcade, but eventually made its way to consoles in a handful of different versions all with the same concept, more or less.
Anyway, the goal is to make a "smartly budgeted" blockbuster movie in the vein of "Independence Day" or "Ghostbusters" (and before you ask, the former actually only cost around $75 million if you can believe it). So anyway, another property to be turned into a mindless blockbuster. Yawn. Rickard's track record speaks for itself, but maybe our opinion will turn around when his next effort, the Bryan Singer directed fairy tale thing "Jack The Giant Killer" hits theaters next year.
FUN STUFF! I'm really excited about the possibility that a live-action film based on the game RAMPAGE may be in the works. Many folks don't realize it, but there is a huge, detailed back-story that surrounds the deceptively simple game play. Whatever happens, tho, it will be incredible to see what the filmmakers do with it…
Of course, I'm probably MORE than a little bit biased. My name is Brian Colin and… nearly three decades ago as a young Bally/Midway employee fresh out of film school, I conceived, designed, animated & fought for the development of the original arcade game RAMPAGE. Ten years later, together with my buddy Jeff Nauman, we did it all over again when Midway asked our company, Game Refuge, to reinvent and remake the game as RAMPAGE WORLD TOUR.
As the games' creators, we would very much like to offer our assistance to the producers in just about any capacity… We have dozens of pages of original game design documents, storyline notes, concept sketches, press releases, newspaper and magazine articles, â¦as well as a wealth of anecdotal material that weâd love to share with the folks behind this project.
Hopefully the producers read these comments… Who knows?
Maybe I could do a cameo…or get Stan Lee to play me doing a cameo…?