The 1984 sci-fi action adventure “The Last Starfighter” was a seminal feature for an entire generation, and for many years there has been quiet murmurs of hope for a potential sequel or remake.
This week the film’s original co-writer Jonathan Betuel offered an update on the sequel and explained that he is still working on a follow-up with the help of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” writer Gary Whitta.
However there has been a key change recently in regards to the film’s legal rights, and he tells Moviehole it looks like the roadblocks to making something happen are falling away:
“It looks like we’ll be making the deal to get it going. Gary’s a gifted collaborator, we’ll be writing the script together but it’s taken a long time. I had to go through a process that took years to recapture the rights, but that was recently completed and although nothing is ever clear sailing, it looks like we have a really good opportunity now. So I’m really looking forward to taking it up.”
Betuel also confirmed there’s no plans for a TV series, this is very much a “movie with all the bells and whistles”. It also won’t require that you have seen the original film as while there’ll be references, it’ll carry the saga forward:
“The leads are now parents and time has passed. It’s not a remake, it’s going to continue the story. What’s changed is time itself, certainly as the video world and the alien world have continued to tick away. It’s not a time capsule of the ’80s by any means, we’re taking it to the next level. Passing the torch…or the joystick.”
The original film followed a young man living in a trailer park who used video games as a way to disappear from his humdrum life. When he becomes the highest scoring player on an arcade game called Starfighter, he is kidnapped by an alien and learns that the game is actually a training simulator for a real-life interplanetary conflict and he’s been drafted into their war.
