The Internet is all a-tizzy this morning over the news that Jennifer Lopez is making a live-action movie out of the long-running educational video game Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? We couldn’t help wondering what might happen if this turned into a trend, and drew up a quick list of other singing actors who could help bring classic games to the big screen.
Ryan Gosling in Pitfall
Since Gosling seems to be making more commercially driven projects lately, why not just go whole hog and put on a fedora and leather jacket for a movie based on everyone’s favorite treasure-hunting Atari 2600 game? Bonus: he can enlist his band, Dead Man’s Bones, to perform the hit closing credits song — it’ll be called something like “Pitfall (Pitfall Harry’s Theme).”
Don Johnson in Leisure Suit Larry
Admittedly, Johnson has never given off Larry’s desperate, schlubby vibe — but he’s 61 now, and the thought of him wearing Larry’s Miami Vice-inspired duds should send a suitable tingle of sweaty dread down the spines of women all over the world. Bonus: Johnson can provide vocals and guitar for a will.i.am-remixed version of his hit single “Heartbeat.”
Jamie Foxx in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!
Half hard-hitting biopic, half video game-inspired action thriller, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out! would tap into Foxx’s knack for lending humanity to roles based on troubled celebrities — and as a gifted vocal mimic, he could do two separate covers of “In the Air Tonight”: once as R&B loverman Jamie Foxx, and once in lisping, high-pitched character as “Mike Tyson.”
Joey Lawrence in Zork
Not that he’d be particularly well-suited to a film adaptation of the long-running adventure series. We just wouldn’t mind seeing him wander into a dark place and be eaten by a grue.
Zooey Deschanel in Metroid
The big reveal at the end of the original Metroid — that the space-suited badass protagonist Samus Aran was a woman — was arguably the greatest video game mindfuck of the ’80s. Deschanel would be perfect to play Samus in a Metroid movie, because the unisex suit would prevent her from adorkability, and she could sing as much as she wanted to underneath the goddamn helmet, but we wouldn’t be able to hear a word.
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