Summary
On Thursday,it was revealed that Nicolas Cage would be the star of David O. Russell’sMaddenbiopic. However, the most interesting aspect wasn’t that Cage nabbed the role, but the fact that the movie will be about the video game. Indeed,according to The Hollywood Reporter,Maddenwill tell the origin story of Madden NFL, arguably the biggest sports video game franchise of all-time.
It’s a surprising twist, as the real-life John Madden was a highly successful football coach. For reference,Madden helped lead the then-Oakland Raiders to their first Super Bowl championship, along with a wealth of postseason appearances and divisional titles. And after he retired from coaching, Madden became a renowned television commentator, serving as a color analyst for multiple NFL broadcasts.
Of course, nowadays, the name Madden is most synonymous with the video game that is currently published by EA. Of course, the video game is something that Madden helped shepherd,having believed that a video game could be a useful tool in helping people learn about football and test out football plays.
Still, it was widely believed that the biopic on the now deceased football luminary would be about his football life. However, that has seemingly now changed. It’s unclear exactly why plans shifted, though, the success of video game adaptations surely had a role. There’s also the fact that, for as successful as Madden was in real-life football, his name is most linked to the world of video games.
This Wouldn’t Be The First Movie About A Video Game
As gamers might surmise, video game adaptations are all the rage as of late,with the likes of The Last of Us, The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Sonic all having received critical and commercial success. However, those adaptations are, well, about video games.Maddenwill tell the tale of how the video game came to be.
That said, it wouldn’t be the first try at an actual video game origin story. That’s because the 2023 Tetris movie was about the race to secure global rights for the video game amid the real-life Cold War. Tetris was generally well-received, so it’s not out of the realm that this movie could also do well. Still, it’s a pretty interesting development.
