Stow the quarters and break out the big bills, Rampage is coming to theatres. New Line Cinema has announced that the classic Midway arcade game will be coming to the silver screen courtesy of producer John Rickard, who is currently meeting with writers to nail down a story.
A staple of the arcade scene, Rampage allowed up to three players to take on the role of overgrown monsters as they tear through various American cities in an endless struggle to level buildings, eat civilians and fend off those pesky military helicopters. And the monsters were actual characters, of sorts, with the 50-foot gorilla, Godzilla and werewolf really just being ordinary people turned monstrous by the experiments of Scumlabs.
Not that that really matters though, as Heat Vision reports that the movie will focus more on the “title and visuals of the game” than just about anything else. It’s a paper thin back-story and “city gets blown up by giant creatures” is about as malleable a premise as you can get, so getting the title and look of the game should please Rampage diehards — assuming the project actually moves forward. Universal’s Asteroids movie hasn’t gone anywhere in nearly two years, begging the question of whether 30-year-old games are as rich a vein of narrative potential as once thought.