Yesterday Screen Rant reported on the bewildering news that Hollywood is going to be making a movie based on the classic arcade game, Asteroids – a game with no story or mythology behind it, which thus it begged the question of how they plan to make a movie out of it, and more importantly, what’s the point?
Well, today we’ve got news that pushes the “WTF?” bar to a whole new level: They’re apparently making a movie based on the View-Master toy.
Yes, that’s right, that device you look into that allows you to view 3D images. I know, you really can’t make this stuff up…
Fringe co-producer/writer Brad Caleb Kane announced on Twitter that after he’s done with an upcoming film called Uprising, he’ll start working on a View-Master movie for Dreamworks. There’s no word on a plot as of yet (an early report stated it would center around aliens, but that has since been debunked), but Transformers screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are reportedly behind the film. It is being described by Kane as, “like the old 80’s Amblin movies: Goonies, Young Sherlock… In that vein.”
For those of you who may not be familiar with the View-Master, it came about in 1939 and originally wasn’t a toy, but rather a device for people to have the chance to view picturesque 3D images of tourist attractions and other locations. However, years later it began to be looked at and marketed as a children’s toy.
View-Master being marketed as a children's toy.
The Hollywood trend of turning toys, board games and video games into movies just seems to continue on full steam ahead. Monopoly, Battleship, Stretch Armstrong and the recently announced Asteroids are just a handful in development at the moment. But I think a View-Finder tops them all in terms of, “How can they even make this into a movie?”
Asteroids at least incorporates SOME kind of action (albeit a small triangle shoots at asteroids), but View-Master is just a device you look through! I’m struggling to think what plot they can even come up with for this one: Perhaps it will center around the invention of the product, rather than the product itself. Maybe it will be in the vein of Horton Hears A Who! where a world inhabited by creatures can be found in the slides you look at through the device. It really is a head-scratcher of the highest order.
View-Master is actually one of those toy adaptations I’m interested in seeing, for no other reason than to see just what they hell they come up with in terms of plot. I think if Kane makes this into a workable movie he deserves some sort of award.
What do you make of a View-Master movie? Any thoughts on what plot they could derive from the toy/device?
No release date has been mentioned yet for the View-Master adaptation.
Source: ComingSoon (via /Film) and Twitter
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