When American Gladiators returned to television last year for the first time since 1996, it was a huge hit. The show only got a limited run but show creator Johnny Ferraro has convinced Sunset Pictures to give him enough money to bring it back again, this time as a feature film.
This probably should be the place where I make fun of anyone who likes American Gladiators, but I’m not going to do that. When I was eleven, I thought it was fantastic. American Gladiators was appointment television in my house. It was like wrestling, but with all the really stupid, soap-opera like storylines edited out and with more gadgets. Who doesn’t like gadgets? Now I’m older and I’ve been fed a steady diet of modern reality television and the whole thing just seems ridiculous, but I get why kids might still be interested in it. What I don’t get is how you make an actual movie out of it.
Scott Mednick is producing the movie and he tells Variety, “I look forward to creating a compelling story that launches a whole new set of characters.” They’re not just putting the game show up on the screen, but instead creating some sort of action storyline set in the world of American Gladiators… and that’s where I get confused. What world of American Gladiators? You mean the warehouse where they build the games? Will the whole thing end with a big shoot out on the Eliminator? I don’t get it.
Here’s the really weird twist in this whole mess. Ferraro insists that the show was originally conceived as a movie, not a game show. Again, I don’t get it. How does this work as a feature film? There’s no story. Ok they have characters, sort of. But most of them don’t really have personalities, just muscles and cool names. Simply naming a guy “Laser” and putting him in a unitard does not make him a character you’d want to watch for ninety minutes in a movie.
