It still remains to be seen if Battleship – the movie – will deliver. Of course, we’ll know for sure in April.
In the meantime, speculation over the film’s fate continues to run rampant, due to its enormous budget, not to mention eye rolling everywhere from geeks and film fans. Come on, the Milton Bradley (Hasbro) game? Puh-leeze!
Still, if Battleship director Peter Berg is sweating it, he’s putting on a very brave face publicly, ’cause it’s not showing at the moment. He just talked to Mike Ryan, the uber chronicler of all things geek for Moviefone, and Berg explained a Battleship movie was his idea. “That’s the really f*cked up part,” the director said.
Berg’s father is a navy historian, who took his kid to every Navy museum there was. “I love the Navy and always wanted to do a Navy film,” Berg said, and he even wanted to do a movie on the Indianapolis, the famous historical event recalled by Robert Shaw in Jaws.
”I wanted to a navy film and I’m thinking, right now, in our business, there are these huge movies being made – I wanted to make one of these big ‘super movies.'”
Then Berg figured he could create a big movie around the simple idea of Battleship. For those who think building a movie around Battleship is silly, Berg continued that when someone says hit in the game, “I have figured out where he is and I try to kill him as violently and quickly and brutally as I can. He’s going to get desperate and try to find where I am and kill me. The core of the game is this very violent component, which is a great engine for a movie.”
Funny enough, Berg also made a movie in high school based on the game Stratego. And soon enough we’ll all know for sure if Battleship ultimately hits or sinks.
