Leonardo DiCaprio has signed on to star as Nolan Bushnell in Atari, a biopic about “the founding father of electronic gaming”, who was the inventor of Pong and founder of Atari.
Screenwriters Brian Hecker (Tribeca short film Bart Got a Room) and Craig Sherman (Pop Warner’s biopic) sold the pitch to Paramount on Friday, and DiCaprio’s production company Appian Way will produce. Hecker and Sherman told THR that they hope to play with elements from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Tucker.
Bushnell was an engineering student who went from fixing broken pinball machines to launching the Atari Corporation in 1972 (a reference to a check-like position in Go, one of Nolan’s favorite games) where he created Pong, which is often regarded as the world’s first video arcade game (which is actually untrue, as Computer Space launched a year earlier). A home version was released in 1974 and took the world by storm. Nolan sold the company to Warner Communications for a mere $28 million, to get the capital to release the Atari 2600, credited with popularizing the use cartridge based console video game systems. By 1979, the 2600 was the best-selling Christmas gift. By 1983, the company had sold over 8 million units. Nolan also created Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre (later known as just Chuck E. Cheese).
Having grown up a kid of the 1980’s, I have a huge amount of respect for Nolan Bushnell. That said, I’m not sure if his story is worth telling on the big screen. It seems more of a Pirates of Silicon Valley type of story. And I’m not knocking Pirates, it’s considered a cult classic among tech geeks, but there is a reason that that movie was made for television. And with over 20 projects in some form of development, as producer or star, I’m not sure DiCaprio will ever find enough time to clear his plate to do this film.
Among his other films in development, DiCaprio is also attached to play felon Jordan Belfort in Warner Bros’ The Wolf of Wall Street and James Bond creator Ian Fleming in Fleming. The actor/producer has taken on many real life roles over the years including author Tobias Wolff, poets Jim Carroll and Arthur Rimbaud, counterfeiter Frank Abagnale Jr. and aviator Howard Hughes.
source: THR
June 6th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Okay, this guys slate is so full I don’t even care anymore when someone says he’s attatched to something because it’s utterly meaningless.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Leo wants Oscar
Bio = Oscar
Leo wants Bio
June 6th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Oh hell yes an ATARI flick. Documentaries about ATARI launching arcade and home gaming in the late 70’s are so enthralling. I’ve often wondered when Hollywood would chime in. Hope they treat it right!
June 6th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
im just waiting for a apple biopic
not like pirates of silicon valley
just jobs and woz
June 7th, 2008 at 12:38 am
I’ve allready scene this bio-pick. It can be found on the Windows version of Atari’s Anthology game.
Spoliers……… Ghessh
They had it on as a bonus feature.
The entire rise and fall was discribed by Nolan himself. There wasn’t much there, other than the rise in fame and other games he did, then sold the company and started another smaller less successful one. The end.
What are they gonna do to make THAT oscar worthy?
Close ups, a love triangle, aliens, Pong aliens that come out of the tv like in The Ring?
This couldn’t be more a retarded a concept for a bio-pic.. (IMO) of course…;-)
Maybe a comedy!
June 7th, 2008 at 12:41 am
been a lot of biopics lately…
June 7th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Thanks for that pong screen shot btw.
June 7th, 2008 at 2:12 am
@ 790
The ATARI story itself - how they single handedly started gaming - is very interesting, especially to those who haven’t seen a documentary about it already. The business maneuvers they had to make and the hurdles they conquered make for great storytelling. I’m sorry you find it boring. Hit wikipedia and ready up a little.
ANY film that goes into production purely for an Oscar is destined to bomb. I sincerely doubt this is the case here. I mean, it’s called ATARI for fucksake.
June 7th, 2008 at 10:21 am
I remember reading a book awhile back called “The Masters of Doom” about the creators of the game Doom and being amazed at how interesting and even gripping the story was.
So who knows it could be an interesting and fresh biopic. Unfortunately despite some good biopics being released the thought of the many films on the horizon is somewhat nausiating. Personally I blame “Ray”.
June 7th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Seems to me that Leo is (d)evolving into another Tom Cruise. starting to take himself a little too seriously, over estimating his acting chops.
Dude still looks like he’s 15. Him in the Aviator as Howard Hughes was completely ridiculous. A million fake southern accents and moustaches couldn’t salvage that one.
June 8th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Leo can act circles around Tom Cruise, and deserves a lot of respect for the roles he’s taken. That said, I don’t think this project sounds remotely interesting, and I also think it’s dumb that they casted Leo for the Ian Fleming film as well (what, there weren’t any actual British actors available?). With the Atari project — give it to an up-and-coming actor trying to prove himself, put it on TNT, and save some big screen space for a movie worth putting up.
June 9th, 2008 at 2:48 am
“im just waiting for a apple biopic
not like pirates of silicon valley
just jobs and woz”
actually those 2 worked for Nolan… so, they could scratch their story…
btw, Nolan has a new publicly traded company called uWink, Inc.
check it out!!! could be a investment opportunity (Stocksymbol: UWKI)
June 11th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
My mom worked for Nolan in the early 70’s at Atari and before that the company was called Syzygy or something like that. In fact, half my family worked there at one time or another. I used to go with my brother to pick my mom up from work and we’d wait in the lobby where they had the latest video games that you didn’t have to put a quarter in. They had one called Space Race where you fly your rocket from the bottom of the screen to the top without getting blown up by the comets or whatever they were. Anyway, I was about 11 years old and I played the thing every time I came in and I easily figured out the pattern and Nolan apparently was watching from behind a window and saw what I was doing and they went back and had the programmers make the game more difficult. That’s the way my mom tells the story.
July 7th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Not too keen on gaming, but the documentary value in the movie itself is worth watching and perhaps learning from.
Thanks for sharing this!