Not that long ago movie adaptations were primarily of novels, comic books, TV shows and even cartoons. But as of late, several new trends have reared their heads in Hollywood, including toy-based, board game-based and video game-based movies.
Today we have some strange but not altogether shocking news that another video game movie is on the way in the form of Rollercoaster Tycoon. That's right, that long-running simulation game where you run your own theme park and build your own unique rollercoasters to put in them.
I know some of you wish I was making this up, but I assure you I'm not.
Heat Vision Blog reports that Sony has pre-emptively acquired the rights from game-maker Atari to adapt Rollercoaster Tycoon for the big-screen. Harald Zwart (The Karate Kid remake) is heading development and exec producing the movie, which he may even end up directing.
The development is already far enough along for two screenwriters to be hired to pen the script: David Ronn and Jay Scherick, who wrote the upcoming Kevin James comedy, The Zookeeper. No word on the plot yet, but we do know it will be a live-action/CGI hybrid of some sort.
That sort of combination usually applies to movies where there will be talking animals as the lead characters - a la Alvin and the Chipmunks, Garfield and the currently in-development Smurfs movie (coincidentally Ronn and Scherick are now reported to be writing that as well). I can only guess the CGI aspect will be for the rollercoasters since the crazy ones that will likely appear in the movie probably don't exist. And building those kind of sets would certainly take a lot of time, money and effort - CGI is clearly the easier option on all fronts.
Although it may seem strange to those looking at this from a "How can they even make a movie out of this?" point of view, it actually makes sense for the studio when you look at the success of the Rollercoaster Tycoon game series: in total, since its first release in 1999, the series has made somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 million, resulting in it being the 3rd best-selling PC game in the U.S.
It's no wonder a studio scooped the movie rights up. It has instant name recognition (even for non-gamers it's a well known title) and I imagine a lot of people will see it no matter what the story is or who ends up starring in it.
What do you think of them making a Rollercoaster Tycoon movie? Looking forward to it or is it another lame idea for an adaptation? Sound off in the comments below.
Source: Heat Vision Blog