A reboot of the 1984 film The Last Starfighter might finally be underway. On Twitter, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story screenwriter Gary Whitta teased his next project with several pieces of concept art. Fans of the original film will likely recognize the spaceships depicted in the concepts.
“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,” he wrote. Betuel is, of course, the screenwriter for the original film. “You might recognize the ships. Thanks to the amazing Matt Allsopp (lead concept artist on ROGUE ONE) for creating these images for us.”
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
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As if that weren’t evidence enough, Whitta followed up with a screencap from The Last Starfighter and the caption, “Okay, back to work… might have a bit more for you later.”
Okay, back to work… might have a bit more for you later 🙂 pic.twitter.com/mYeLqHUvrb
— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) April 4, 2018
Whitta and Betuel have been trying to get The Last Starfighter reboot off the ground since before 2015. “You’ve got this completely byzantine, impenetrable situation where no one seems to know exactly what the deal is,” Whitta said at the time. “Whenever I’ve been in a room in Hollywood, the conversation [goes to], ‘Is there a way to do Starfighter?’ [Executives] will say, ‘We looked into it — there’s no way to get the rights; we don’t understand but can’t get them.’ There are a lot of writers who would kill to have the opportunity to tell a new Starfighter story.”
However, it seems as though Whitta and Betuel have finally gotten the project off the ground. “We still need to deal with some remaining biz stuff before we can really move forward. We’ve had a lot of talks with Universal,” Whitta revealed to io9. “We’re determined, one way or another, to make this happen.”
In the original film, a young man named Alex Rogan is recruited into an intergalactic war after he beats an arcade-style video called The Last Starfighter. Unbeknownst to him, the game was a test to find the best starfighters in the galaxy. After he unwittingly joins the cause, he finds himself battling alien bounty hunters, invaders and an entire army — all on his own.