Legendary Arcade Hit Joust to Hit Big Screen in Explosive Future Las Vegas Sci-Fi Action Epic

Hardcore Joust fans, your day of vindication has arrived. Newly formed film production company CP Productions plans to bring John Newcomer's classic arcade title, which revolves around a flying ostrich-mounted knight defeating endless waves of similarly airborne foes, to the silver screen in what it describes as "Gladiator meets Mad Max." The sci-fi action film is set to be completed by next June. CP's first project is Joust, featuring a Marc Gottlieb-penned script set 25 years on in the floating city of Las Vegas. It is unclear if iconic characters Bounder, Hunter, Shadow Lord, and the imposing pterodactyl, will appear. According to GameDaily BIZ, studio founders Christine Peters (The Out-of-Towners, The Friday Night Knitting Club) and Michael Cerenzie (My Sexiest Year, G String Divas) plan to both bring established video game properties to film as well as develop films for the under-25 set that will then be translated to game form. Presumably, the company plans to adapt a Joust game based on its movie adaptation of the Joust game. In a video interview published in the 1996 PlayStation compilation Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits Collection, Newcomer stated his longrunning intention to create a movie based on his franchise. "Joust the movie is a little hobby I've been working on," Newcomer explained. "I guess the transition is, I started off as a toy designer, then I became a toy designer, then I would like to become a movie designer. I had always thought that Joust would make a great movie. The technology was never there for what I had in mind, but now it's more than there." CP has lofty ambitions for the integrity of its films, which it plans to independently finance. "We'll work to keep the creative team intact throughout the process," promised Cerenzie. "We won't have eight writers and six executives trying to put their thumbprint on the film. The vision of the filmmakers will be kept pure." It is unclear if creator Newcomer is involved with the project.