The new double issue of Entertainment Weekly features the first look at Happy Madison’s feature film adaptation of the awesome short film Pixels, and you can see it right here if that’s your kind of thing. It has the whole “unusual heroes” angle basically covered, with Adam Sandler playing the same guy he almost always plays, Josh Gad playing some sort of spaz and Peter Dinklage rocking the mullet to end all mullets, while Michelle Monaghan plays the straight-laced government official assigned to their ragtag team. I don’t even have to scratch my chin to guess that Sandler will end up with Monaghan, because Happy Madison films have become more predictable than sunsets.
As for the rest of the plot, well, it’s like I just said.
In the Chris Columbus-directed film, the U.S. president (Kevin James) recruits his childhood friends to help save the country. Back in 1982, his three buddies were arcade prodigies, but cut to the present day: “They’re really three losers,” laughs Columbus. They’ve ended up a TV mechanic (Adam Sandler), a felon (Peter Dinklage), and a conspiracy theorist (Frozen‘s Josh Gad). But, they’re still the best guys for the job, and after teaming up with a more up-to-date weapons expert (True Detective‘s Michelle Monaghan), they have no choice but to be ready for battle. (Via EW)
While he hasn’t done it in some time, I can almost feel a Rob Schneider “You can do it!” moment coming in Pixels, while I’m also guessing that Ashley Benson’s video game warrior character will end up with Gad, because welcome to Happy Madison, Josh. Meanwhile, the always-wonderful Jane Krakowski joins the fold as James’s First Lady, while Brian Cox plays the hard-nosed Admiral Porter, who undoubtedly wants a nuclear war launched on the invading video game forces.
Patrick Jean’s Pixels was a visual masterpiece with the way that he brought the 8-bit characters to life without removing any of the nostalgia. Columbus, though, told EW that we should expect something so much more from his version, because it seems that he’s taking the charm of the blocks away and simply bringing the characters to life.
Columbus is taking things to the next level visually: “From a visual effects standpoint, audiences are going to be seeing things that they’ve never seen before. To be quite honest, a lot of visual effects movies cover the same territory whether it’s destroying a city or superhero visual effects, they tend to have a certain amount of intense HD reality,” he says. “[Here] we’re taking classic eight-bit characters and turning them into fully realized, three-dimensional, pixelated characters that are quite threatening.” (Via EW)
Threatening is cool and all, but so are 8-bit characters that turn everything into blocks. Oh well, I can’t wait to find out which of the characters are voiced by Shaquille O’Neal and Vanilla Ice.
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