First Trailer and Posters for Adam Sandler's Pixels Released
Columbia Productions and Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Productions have just released the first official trailer and still photos to herald the arrival in theaters this July 24th of Pixels, a 3D live-action/computer-animated comedy film adapted from Patrick Jean's 2010 short animation feature about an invasion of New York City by classic 8-bit video games Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Arkanoid, among others.
Pixels stars Adam Sandler as Sam Brenner, a former 1980s video game champion, The US President's childhood best friend and the designated leader of the team that was put up to save earth; Kevin James as President William Cooper, Sam's childhood best friend, and the sitting US President who will also serve as a member of the team; Josh Gad as the conspiracy-theory-obsessed, socially-inept sad-sack genius member of the team; Peter Dinklage as Sam's former video game-playing nemesis who must now help him as a member of the team; Michelle Monaghan as a weapons developer and specialist for the military and a member of the team who will be Sam's love interest; Jane Krakowski as the First Lady, the wife of President Cooper who once also dated Sam; Brian Cox as Admiral Porter, a military heavyweight; Sean Bean as an Army General and another military heavyweight; Ashley Benson as Lady Lisa, a beautiful warrior from the fictional 1980s video game Dojo Quest; and Toru Iwatani, the creator of Pac-Man, as himself.
Pixels is directed by Chris Columbus from a screenplay by Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling and a screen story by Tim Herlihy based on Jean's original work. According to the studio synopsis, in the hopes of establishing peaceful communication with extraterrestrial life, NASA in 1982 launches a time capsule into outer space containing images and footage of earth life and culture, including some enclosed video-feeds of the classic arcade games. Of course, the aliens misinterpret the ultra-violent games as a declaration of war so they launches an attack on Earth. They even uses the games as models for their various assault modes. As counter-measure, President Cooper calls on his childhood best friend, the former 1980s video game champion Sam Brenner, now a home theater installer, to lead a team of their fellow old-school arcade gamers to try and beat the aliens.