I've talked about this idea before, first when we heard Midway games were going to start film development in 2009 and then in March of 2010 when we heard that Space Invaders was starting production. It seemed crazy, and for a videogame with no story it seems it's taken a hell of a long time to move the production forward from then.

Now we're hearing that Space Invaders is finally looking for a writer to develop a film from the concept, well when I say concept I really mean that in the lightest most airy terms possible, for what is Space Invaders?

Aliens invading, one ship defending and every so often a mothership passes overhead to be shot. As they descend they get faster and if you don't shoot them early enough they eat your defences and eventually kill you.

Wow. What a film concept.

However, and I've said this before, this is actually one of the most interesting and easy properties to develop into a film. Why is that? Well there's no story, there's no history, there's no existing fan base to upset with their ideals of what the property is, and yet instantly they've bought this very marketable property that is getting them a lot of airplay straight away.

It's like Battleship and Asteroids, instantly recognisable properties that are streets ahead of the other films in development in terms of marketing and are going to be easy to market with recognisable images across the world.

Of course whether the Space Invaders film can be any good is another question, but they aren't tied down to anyone else's vision, the restrictions of this story are that they need an alien invasion film where the opposing force is overwhelming, that's it.

The Hollywood Reporter has the story that the eighties game, which is ranked in the Guinness Book of World Records as the top arcade game of all time (reason for purchase number one) is being developed and a writer is being sought to develop the story.

Of course there are other ways they could take this, they don't have to develop the game concept into a film, they could develop a film about the game. It's one of the first video games, ranked the most popular of all time, it became an icon, and is perhaps started the move of videogames from sleazy arcade to mainstream.

Now there are stories aplenty in there.