WarGames2 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I thought we'd already been through this... The initial rumors and first word of a WarGames sequel, the silence followed by the inevitable continuation of the project, and the ill-reviewed and mostly ignored result. But this is Hollywood, and at least they doggedly stick to their try and try again mentality, and this time, there's a good chance that this won't be an ignorable project.

While Production Weekly is subscriber-only, they have a Twitter feed that shares little morsels of news, like the following report: "Leonardo DiCaprio looking to reboot the 80's thriller "War Games" at MGM." Yes, move over Matt Lanter, Leo wants to to do his own take on WarGames. But this won't be a sequel, this will be one of those dreaded reboots. First Ralph Maccio gets replaced with Jaden Smith, now Matthew Broderick will be replaced with ... I shudder to think.

I'm not sure how WarGames re-dos fit into a professional life busy with acting gigs like Beat the Reaper and production gigs like Akira, but maybe this is only the first breaths of a project that will fall into development hell. Oh, how I hope. But how about you? Are you super-excited to see WarGames rebooted?

This isn't the first time the world has been threatened by a sequel to the 1983 Matthew Broderick vehicle and quintessential 80s flick War Games. Way back in June of 2005 it was reported here on Cinematical that a film called War Games II: The Deadly Key was in the works. Obviously that project was nuked back into the stone-age, and the notion of developing a War Games franchise was set aside.

Once again, though, the idea of a sequel has reared its head, and with shooting scheduled to begin in Montreal, Canada this November, it looks like this one will actually get made. Stuart Gillard (with many television credits and the direction of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III to his name) will helmWar Games 2: The Dead Game, from a screenplay by Randall M. Badat (whose most recent feature credit on IMDB is the 1993 film Hear No Evil). Anyone feeling hopeful about this yet? The storyline, according to Production Weekly, follows a teenage hacker "whose world gets turned upside after playing an online terrorist-attack simulator game against a government super-computer designed to profile potential terrorists. All hell breaks loose when Homeland Security is convinced that he's a terrorist intent on disrupting the fabric of society." While the story has been updated to reflect a modern awareness of terrorist threats, the basic premise sounds more like a remake than a sequel.

Call me cynical, but how can this be a good idea? War Games was successful in its day, but does the title really carry enough clout to warrant any interest from the general public? No word on a release date, but the smart money says this is going straight to DVD.