Way back in March of 2010, we wrote somewhat skeptically about Warner Bros. optioning the rights to Space Invaders, the classic old-school arcade game, from original manufacturer Taito. It's been so long since that news hit, with no more word about it, that you could probably guess something was changing, especially given news about similar projects like Missile Command and Asteroids.
We're not sure why Warner Bros. dropped the project-- maybe all that other video game adaptation competition scared them off-- but in today's THR they report that producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Gigi Pritzker have picked up where they left off. Pritzker, of Odd Lot Entertainment, and di Bonaventura have teamed up to option the rights and develop a story from the very bare bones game; they're currently searching for a writer who's up for the fairly huge task of turning basic pixels into a grand space adventure.
Di Bonaventura, for his part, should probably know how to do it as well as anyone-- he's minted money taking other 80s properties like Transformers and G.I. Joe and turning them into feature films. Sure, those toys came along with their own complex narratives, but maybe he's now just looking for something that's an even bigger challenge. I don't really envy the writer who will be charged with making sense out of all of those blocks of pixels shooting lasers at each other, but then again, she or he will also be shaping what could easily be the next Transformers-sized hit. Not a bad tradeoff at all.
