Monday, June 09, 2008

DiCaprio to star in Gaming-Based Film

I just read that Leonardo DiCaprio has won the battle to play and produce a movie about Atari co-founder Noah Bushnell, following in the footsteps of Noah Wyle and Anthony Michael Hall who played Steve Jobs and Bill Gates respectively in the docudrama The Pirates of Silicon Valley.

Bushnell, who also started the Chuck E. Cheese chain of pizza parlours/arcades has long been an icon in the video gaming world, so it seems like great news that not only has an three-time Oscar nominated actor wants to star in the movie, but that there was actually a battle from multiple parties to bring the story to the big screen.

Of course, I had my doubts about Leonardo DiCaprio being a good physical match for Bushnell:



I kept thinking, how could that pretty boy play that part... and then I saw this picture, and suddenly I believed.



And then I thought about DiCaprio's history of playing real life figures (Tobias Wolff, Frank Abagnale Jr., Howard Hughes, Arthur Rimbaud, King Louis XIV, Jim Carroll and an upcoming part as young Theodore Roosevelt), so I believe my previous fears may have been without merit.

3 comments:

Peter Lynn said...

Based on that picture alone, I can actually buy him as Roosevelt too. Throw a fair of round spectacles on him, and he's a dead ringer for TR.

Mayren said...

Thank you for your pop culture knowledge there MC... I've never made the connection of DiCaprio favoring the historical Fiction Movies till now. I mean we all know but that singular connection hadn't been made.

Thank you *hug*

MC said...

Peter: Come to think of it, you do make a good point.

Mayren: And of course, the Titanic sinking and the New York anti-Draft riots from Gangs of New York were also real life events, even if he was playing a fully fictional characters in both.