Director Roland Emmerich, the man who so famously blew up the "earf" via alien invasion in Independence Day, via global warming/cooling in The Day After Tomorrow, via Mayan prophecy in 2012, and via...uh...Shakespearean conspiracy in the upcoming film Anonymous, has finally found a premise unworthy of his explodey importance.
Specifically, he has apparently decided to drop any plans to turn Asteroids, the classic arcade game that featured a powerful space cruiser (in the form of a triangle) blowing up an ever-increasing onslaught of massive asteroids (in the form of various misshapen circles) into a film (presumably in the form of something featuring actors, and dialogue.)
The idea of an Asteroids movie has been kicking around since Lorenzo di Bonaventura, the famous producer most recently known for somehow turning a live action G.I. Joe into even more of a cartoon than the cartoon it was based on, picked up the rights back in 2009 and started saying highly infuriating things like this to IGN:
"It's funny because people say there's nothing in the game, but that's not entirely right" he explained. "I was attracted to Asteroids, plain and simple, because I think what it tells you is that there's going to be this big thing in space."
"We've crafted a really strong, deep mythology for the thing. Without divulging too much about it, it's two lead characters - two brothers - who have to go through a seminal experience to figure out their relationship, against this huge backdrop."
But what of the title's point-and-shoot gameplay? "Well you'd better have some guys in spaceships blowing stuff up" he continued "or else you haven't honoured the fun of Asteroids."
While "a big thing in space" and "blowing stuff up" sounds like the sort of thing that Emmerich might jump on, given his love of big things and blowing them up, evidently Emmerich has been telling folks at the Toronto International Film Festival that he's no longer involved. Said Emmerich:
I was very honored that they wanted to have me as a director, and I kind of liked the script very much, but at that time I was writing with my writing partner Harold Kloser a new script called Singularity and I opted for that.
Singularity is also a sci-fi film, albeit one that's had little discussion among Hollywood circles at this point. While it's equally likely that Emmerich didn't want to throw his hat into the "giant asteroid" genre of films, which already achieved undeniable perfection in 1998 with Michael Bay's Armageddon, it is at least nice to hear a director, even one of such generally...consistent talents as Emmerich, opt for an original project over another needless video game movie.
Not that that will stop Asteroids from happening, of course. Maybe after he gets done turning Battleship into the most absurd waste of $200 million anyone has ever seen, Peter Berg can give it the old college try.