When I heard Lorenzo Di Bonaventura was planning an adaptation of the Atari game Asteroids, I was super excited because 4-bit images of rocks are my favorite. Now it gets even better, as Vulture reports that Universal has offered the project to Roland Emmerich (2012, The Day After Tomorrow) a director who’s really good at blowing things up and nothing else.  The guy made a movie about Shakespeare and the trailer had cannon fights in it, so it’s a safe bet that this will also include fire.

Vulture hears that Asteroids has just been offered to Emmerich by Universal, which is developing the feature film with Transformers: Dark of the Moon producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. The script comes from Matt Lopez, best known for writing Disney’s The Race to Witch Mountain.

But it’s not all bad, he also wrote Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories and Nic Cage’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Now, wait. We already know what you’re thinking: Doesn’t even thinking about directing this violate Emmerich’s self-proclaimed ban on making any more movies showing the destruction of Earth? Ah, but hold! Our spies tell us that, technically, no, it does not, because Asteroids is actually set after the destruction of Earth!
We’re told it’s an ersatz sequel to world-ending Emmerich films like Independence Day and 2012, but one in which the aliens have won. The remnants of human civilization are now living on far-flung colonies within an asteroid belt alongside aliens. The survivors were led to believe that this alien civilization was benevolent, rescuing them from doom, but ultimately discover that the aliens have engineered Earth’s destruction, and soon will do the same for the rest of humankind. [Vulture]

Phew, for a second there I was really worried about Roland Emmerich violating his principles. Anyway, this should be great. Movies based on primitive videogames are always just the best.

Here's me and Roles at the grand opening of our friend's bistro. At first I worried two scarves might be a little much, but I think I pulled it off. JEALOUS?