Last summer media insiders revealed that the popular arcade game Space Invaders was going to be made into a film.  Arcade game junkies will be pleased to know that there are more arcade based movies being made.

Hollywood has now secured the rights to a feature film based on the Atari classic "Asteroids".  Games are generally difficult to turn into movies as they lack story lines humans can identify with.  The people behind the scenes on the Asteroids project are still waiting on a workable script.

Other arcade movies in the works include Rampage and the monsters versus the military game which was released in 1986.  Both Mortal Combat and Tomb Raider are also being worked on.  The movie being prepared for the Tomb Raider game is the origins story of Lara Croft.  It looks like Angelina Jolie will not be involved as the makers are looking for a younger actress.  

It is unlikely that these movies will become blockbuster hits.  Most movies based on games tend to perform poorly at the box office.  This could be due to fans of the game choosing to wait until it comes out on Netflix.  The key to making these movies will be finding a script which draws in the general audience, not just those who are fans of arcade games.  This will be difficult to do if the story is too focused on the action within the game.  Many movies like this tend to focus on special effects and forget to tell a compelling story.  There is no word on when these movies will be out as scripts still need to be written.