Rogue One’s Gary Whitta working on a reboot of The Last Starfighter

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Do you remember THE LAST STARFIGHTER? Well, here's a quick refresher: The 1984 sci-fi film found Alex Rogan (Lance Guest) becoming embarrassingly good at an arcade game called Starfighter. Once he becomes the highest-scoring player, Rogan is approached by the game's creator who reveals that the game is a recruiting tool for a real intergalactic conflict. There have been rumblings over the years about a potential sequel or reboot to THE LAST STARFIGHTER, and now it seems that Gary Whitta (ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY) is working on a little something with Jonathan Betuel, the writer of the original film, which could bring THE LAST STARFIGHTER back to the big-screen.

Gary Whitta revealed as much when he posted the following concept art whipped up by ROGUE ONE's Matt Allsopp on Twitter earlier today.

io9 reached out to Gary Whitta for a little more information on how he got involved and what the plan is for THE LAST STARFIGHTER. "Whenever I’ve brought up the idea of a Starfighter reboot in meetings, people would always convey excitement and then say that it’s impossible because the rights are a mess," Whitta said. "It’s true that it’s not simple, but part of the key to it is, as I understand it (and I’m not a lawyer), Jon still retains some piece of ownership of the original IP, so no one can make a new movie without his participation." Whitta said that he happened to track Betuel down, and, after pestering him with all his fanboy questions about the original film, starting talking about what a new version of the film would look like. "Since then we’ve spent so many hours working on it I’ve long since lost count, but right now we have a fully developed story that is a combination of reboot and sequel that we both think honors the legacy of the original film while passing the torch to a new generation," Whittia explained. "We’re both very excited about it creatively." So, sounds like another "legacy-quel" along the lines of STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS.

The project is still in the very early stages, so it's hard to tell exactly what will happen with it, but Gary Whitta notes that it's a real passion project for Jonathan Betuel and himself. Whitta mentions that they've had a lot of talks with Universal and that one way or another, they're determined to make it happen. When Gary Whitta shared the concept art on Twitter, he tagged Seth Rogen since he know he was also a fan. Whitta also added that he believes Rogen would make a "fantastic Centauri," the creator of the Starfighter game.

Well, there you have it. Would you be open to a sequel/reboot to THE LAST STARFIGHTER?