FINALLY, Hollywood is taking all of the fun and excitement and adventure and intrigue of American Gladiators and bringing it to the big-screen. AT LONG LAST. From Variety:
Johnny Ferraro, creator of the "American Gladiators" TV franchise, is bringing a live-action adaptation of the property to the bigscreen.
The film will be based on the TV show that first aired in 1988 and has been on the air every year except one during the past 20 years. Most recently, NBC aired a primetime installment in 2008. The show has aired in more than 90 countries, with the format adapted for the local market in 14 of them.
The thing is, American Gladiator is already just a family friendly version of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Running Man, right? Arnold Schwarzenegger's Walking Man. And sure, the prisoner-competition genre is as popular as ever with last summer's Death Race and this summer's Gamer (not to mention the tangential prisoner-hunt-on-private-island genre, with movies like Surviving the Game, and The The Condemned). But just because that style of movies is going strong doesn't mean that America is just as hungry for the escape-from-foam-lances-and-tennis-ball-cannons genre.
Hollywood: "Imagine an exhausting race through a completely safe pre-Apocalyptic battlefield of Nerf guns, shoulder pads, and bright blue pools of lukewarm water."
Gabe: "No."
