Leonardo DiCaprio as Nolan Bushnell in new movie called "Atari"

I have never really liked movies based upon video games – they always seem to miss the mark by a mile and end up disappointing. But it is not often that Hollywood decides to do a movie based upon game history so I guess I can give it the benefit of the doubt – for now although these types of stories are generally better fit for TV documentaries rather than movies. Leonardo DiCaprio has signed on to portray Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari and who is widely considered the grandfather of video games. In the pitch made to Paramount, they are going to shoot for a cross between Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Tucker for the biopic of the famous company that started it all but as to what period in Atari’s history it will cover is anyone’s guess and to how accurate it will be also will be up for debate.

As you know I hold a great respect for Atari so I really hope that they don’t botch it up although the current company that owns and uses the Atari name has done worse over the past few years (minus the Flashback 2). I’m sure we can expect to see a number of arcade games in the movie at least but just because a movie has arcades in it doesn’t automatically make it good (i.e. Joysticks).

[Via Slashfilm] [Discuss on the Forum]