Playing Nolan Bushnell, Atari founder

Jun 11, 2008 19:56 GMT  ·  By

As the trend of creating movies based on games and games based on movies is becoming an integral part of both the movie and the videogame business, some people are just about ready to take it all to the next level.

With a Prince of Persia movie starring Jake Gyllehall, and with a BioShock feature directed by Gore Verbisnki being two of the high-profile attempts at bringing videogame intellectual property to a wider audience, Paramount Pictures is announcing that it has acquired the rights to a feature film called "Atari." According to reports, the film should chronicle the life of Nolan Bushnell, the entrepreneur that created the Atari company and who brought Pong to a mass of eagerly awaiting potential gamers. So, no longer are they creating movies based on games, but they're making movies based on the lives of videogames industry people. Hardly can I wait to see the Sid Meier and the Will Wright biographical movies.

"Atari" the movie will be produced by Appian Way, a production company that is partly owned by Leonardo DiCaprio and partly by Warner Bros. Leonardo DiCaprio is also set to play the leading role in the movie. Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman are poised to write the script for the movie, with the clear purpose of making it as close to reality as possible in presenting the early days of personal computers and videogames.

Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney are the guys that founded Atari in 1972. The company, thanks to products like the Atari 2600 and Pong, managed to make gaming popular in the United States and in Japan. As the '90s ended, the company came to a rough patch. At the moment, the French company Infogrames, that owns most of the intellectual property of Atari, is thinking of adopting the Atari name and the Atari legacy.

The date when the movie might debut in cinemas is currently unknown. But, speaking about the upcoming project, Nolan Bushnell himself stated that "I'm very, very thrilled and honored [..]. It's a little bit mind-boggling. It's hard to wrap my head around."