King of Kong director keen on mockumentary remake

Director Seth Gordon is considering a mockumentary remake of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, his 2007 video game documentary whichmany already considerto be a highly fictionalized account of Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe's duel for Donkey Kong arcade supremacy. Chatting withThe Playlist, Gordon said his recent work on Hollywood comedies and faux-documentary TV shows has inspired him to revisit the movie that made his career, except this time dropping the whole 'truth' component altogether.

“There’s a few different avenues [the film can take],” said Gordon, whose latest film, Horrible Bosses, released this past weekend. “I’ve done some work on ‘Modern Family’ and ‘The Office’ and have worked in this doc style, and so that inspired me to say, instead of doing a traditional narrative feature script, what if we did the remake in the doc style? What doors [would] that open? What opportunities? What additional story could we tell? And that’s essentially the approach we took.”

Gordon said a draft for the remake has already been written by Black List writer Melissa Stack, and that there's still a great fondness for the source material, adding, “It’s stunning…I think it’s the thing that won’t ever die in a way because I think we all love the doc ... we haven’t given up on it.”

Making a faux-doc from a borderline fake documentary is akin to announcing a crappy rom-com version of Sex and the City. Regardless, it may be a while before see the likes of The Kings of Kong: Multiple Fisftuls of Even More Quarters (working title), as Gordon was recently been tapped todirect a remakeof the1983 video-games-gone-horribly-wrong flick War Games.

Jul 11, 2011



King of Kong director to play with War Games remake
MGM hires Seth Gordon to reboot 1983 video game movie




Billy Mitchell opens video arcade in Orlando airport
King of Kong villain may be misunderstood, but he knows the value of a quarter

“There’s a few different avenues [the film can take],” said Gordon, whose latest film, Horrible Bosses, released this past weekend. “I’ve done some work on ‘Modern Family’ and ‘The Office’ and have worked in this doc style, and so that inspired me to say, instead of doing a traditional narrative feature script, what if we did the remake in the doc style? What doors [would] that open? What opportunities? What additional story could we tell? And that’s essentially the approach we took.”

Gordon said a draft for the remake has already been written by Black List writer Melissa Stack, and that there's still a great fondness for the source material, adding, “It’s stunning…I think it’s the thing that won’t ever die in a way because I think we all love the doc ... we haven’t given up on it.”

Making a faux-doc from a borderline fake documentary is akin to announcing a crappy rom-com version of Sex and the City. Regardless, it may be a while before see the likes of The Kings of Kong: Multiple Fisftuls of Even More Quarters (working title), as Gordon was recently been tapped todirect a remakeof the1983 video-games-gone-horribly-wrong flick War Games.

Jul 11, 2011



King of Kong director to play with War Games remake
MGM hires Seth Gordon to reboot 1983 video game movie




Billy Mitchell opens video arcade in Orlando airport
King of Kong villain may be misunderstood, but he knows the value of a quarter

Matt Bradford wrote news and features here at GamesRadar+ until 2016. Since then he's gone on to work with the Guinness World Records, acting as writer and researcher for the annual Gamer's Edition series of books, and has worked as an editor, technical writer, and voice actor. Matt is now a freelance journalist and editor, generating copy across a multitude of industries.