By Adam Swiderski, Source: Blastr.com
It’s a good day for giant monster movie news; first, we heard about Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, and now word has come down the wire that the ’80s arcade juggernaut Rampage! will be getting the feature film treatment. Hey, they made a multiseason TV series out of Pac-Man, so this should be no problem.
For those unfamiliar, Rampage! was a stand-up arcade game in which players took control of one of three giant monsters–Lizzie (a titanic lizard/Godzilla knockoff), George (a King Kong-esque overgrown gorilla) and Ralph (a towering werewolf because, well, why not?)–and set about wreaking havoc in cities throughout the continental United States. Buildings were destroyed, innocent pedestrians were stomped or eaten, and a good time was had by all until the endless stream of military personnel and hardware reduced a monster’s health to zero, at which point it would transform back into its frail human form and shuffle offscreen in disgrace.
It was, to put it mildly, quite the quarter-muncher, and it also stood out as one of the first games to place players in the role of the bad guy. How it will translate to the big screen is anyone’s guess, but the task of making it happen will fall to New Line Cinema and producer John Rickard, whose work includes the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake, Final Destination and the upcoming Jack the Giant Killer.
We can’t see Rampage! turning into a tentpole property for New Line, but here’s hoping the game’s irreverent tone and love for old-school sci-fi and classic giant monster flicks makes the midlevel budget transition intact.
