Getting Up on the silver screen

Games and graffiti have both been the subject of Hollywood adaptations that all involved would probably prefer to forget. The 1985 Timothy Hutton vehicle Turk 182 was to graffiti what Christian Slater's 1989 film Gleaming the Cube was to skateboarding. Or what another Christian Slater film from 1989, The Wizard, was to gaming. Or what Christian Slater's 2005 effort Alone in the Dark also was to gaming.

Promising "an homage to graffiti's rich culture," MTV Films today announced that it will try to do right by both gaming and street art with a feature film based on Atari's upcoming game, Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. Ecko himself will produce the film along with MTV Films' Gregg Goldin, and MTV's corporate sibling, Paramount, is slated to distribute the finished product.

"When I first began working on Getting Up seven years ago, I wanted to create a storyline that provided a rare look inside of one of the most influential, yet often overlooked, artistic movements in recent history," Ecko said in a statement. "Today, graffiti is a global cultural phenomenon and few understand its impact better than MTV, pioneers in its use as a motion graphics tool nearly two decades ago. I am delighted to have the ability to bring the depth of our story to life on film and look forward to working with the great team MTV has assembled."

At the moment there's no projected release date for the movie, but the Getting Up game is scheduled for a February 2006 release on PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC.