About a week ago, we published an article about ’80s cult classic The Last Starfighter, and noted that the film’s sequel seemed to be in development hell for more than 30 years. Well, to the surprise of every single person on Twitter Wednesday afternoon, Rogue One screenwriter Gary Whitta (who is apparently working on the screenplay with original writer Jonathan Betuel) showcased some concept art for a new project in the same universe that they’ve been working on.
Grab your paper bags and prepare to hyperventilate, nerds.
Take a look:
Okay, probably shouldn’t show you this so early but here’s a little something I’ve been tinkering on with my co-writer Jonathan Betuel. You might recognize the ships. Thanks to the amazing Matt Allsopp (lead concept artist on ROGUE ONE) for creating these images for us. pic.twitter.com/CIobLYYRHk
— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) April 4, 2018
Whitta went out of his way to shout out Seth Rogan, who as we wrote in that article, had been trying to get a remake or sequel off of the ground for a number of years. We’re especially enamored with how, despite the years that have passed by, Beutel, Whitta, and Allsopp have managed to preserve the classic designs of the original film, instead of opting for some ephemeral new hotness.
There’s not much more available detail-wise, and we can only assume that these are images crafted for a pitch either to a studio or a network, but it’s still really exciting to see something being done on this front, even if we didn’t care for the movie that much. You can thank the success of Ready Player One for this little pre-production glimpse, and we hope to God that this beats fucking Armada, the adaptation of Ernest Cline’s terrible second novel which is basically just a terrible riff on Last Starfighter with some serious oedipal issues, to theaters in the future.
We’ll have more information as it becomes available. Crazy, huh?
Featured image by Matt Allsopp via Gary Whitta.