You'd almost have to pity Roland Emmerich for being typecast as a disaster film director were he not so obviously complicit, if not eager, to bestow the mantle on himself. After a career of movies like Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012, it's only natural that he'd want to set his sights a bit higher for his next outing (after the weird-looking Shakespeare drama Anonymous). As such, it's being reported that Emmerich has been offered the directorial reins for Universal's big-screen adaptation for Asteroids. You know, that game with the densely-woven plot involving a solitary, stranded space pilot who...blows up asteroids.
In all honesty, the fact that they're actually making Asteroids into a movie sounds a lot less ridiculous after we learned that someone decided to spend $200 million on an adaptation of the Battleship game (which is being shot now by Peter Berg). Even so, it's still totally fucking ridiculous. I love me some spaceship fights as much as the next guy, and I'm sure Emmerich can shoot them well, but still - this should be a tight, hundred-minute film, not another unbearably long Emmerich production. (Did 2012 need to be two hours and forty minutes?)
This film is still so far out there that it's probably not worth speculating on just yet, but I'm still curious how they tie the video game into the film, if they even bother. I'm betting our hero is a lonely space pilot who blows up asteroids for a living...only to discover that a certain, suspicious-looking group of asteroids is actually harboring an alien fleet intent to take over Earth and strip it of its resources, etc., etc.
So lame. So, so lame.
Hats off to the guy.
@jeffk38uk:
Shit gonna blow-up!
If it's anything like the mind-numbingly long 2012 I'll be skipping it. However, I might check out an explosion highlight reel on YouTube. Really, that's all anyone cares about with his movies.
@Monkeyman04: It's pretty obvious that it's a joke, but the fact that you have to question it says a lot about the current state of things.