Image: AFP/Kazuhiro Nogi via AFP Relaxnews
Kinetic foot-pounding rhythm game “Dance Dance Revolution” is going to the movies, but instead of a conventional dance-oriented story of ambition and romance, it’s going to be about averting the world’s end through the power of music and movement.
After the success of multi-film franchises “High School Musical” and “Step Up”, one might expect an adaptation of an arcade and home console dancing game to follow the same sort of format.
But this, from its logline at least, could be going its own way.
Rather than (or, perhaps, as well as) sticking close to themes of romance and contemporary career ambition, this movie is to “explore a world on the brink of destruction where the only hope is to unite through the universal language of dance,” per Variety and Deadline.
Japanese publishing giant Konami has teamed up with several United States-based producers on the project: Greg Silverman of “10 Things I Hate About You” and Jet Li’s “The One” is there for his company Stampede Ventures, while J. Todd Harris of “Piranha 3D” and “Wheelman” brings his Branded Pictures VP Marc Marcum to the project.
Konami’s game has been through numerous iterations over a 20-year history, as its players engage in a form of stationary hopscotch, matching arrows on a screen with those on a dance mat underneath them, often to the sound of ferociously intense music.
In its current, loose conceptual form, the film’s pitch recalls another homage to Konami’s franchise: 2011 indie cult hit “The FP” received as a marvelously off-kilter and unlikely post-apocalyptic spin on “Dance Dance Revolution” machines, one in which two clans fight over territory through the use of a fictional dance arcade game called Beat Beat Revolution.
Its crowdfunded sequel, “FP2: Beats of Rage”, premiered at 2018’s Fantastic Fest in September ahead of a wider release in December. JB
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