'War Games' remake gets a writer

By Adnan Tezer Aug 23, 2011, 18:26 GMT

Noah Oppenheim will write the script for MGM's remake of their 1983 hit thriller "War Games."

According to Variety, Seth Gordon ("Horrible Bosses," "Four Christmases") is attached to direct.

Oppenheim is a former television producer who co-created CNBC's "Mad Money With Jim Cramer" and executive produced "Scarborough Country."

The 1983 original was written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham.

The cast included Matthew Broderick (in the role that launched his career), Ally Sheedy, Dabney Coleman, John Wood and Barry Corbin.

The film centers on David Lightman (Broderick), a young computer hacker who unknowingly breaks into the WOPR, a United States military supercomputer designed to play a series of games that can predict possible outcomes of nuclear war.

Lightman, thinking that it's just a video game, gets the WOPR to run a nuclear war simulation between the U.S. and Russia. The simulation causes a national nuclear missile scare between the two countries and nearly kicks off World War III.

The film made nearly $80 million domestically off a $12 million budget, was nominated for three Oscars and became an 80s pop culture touchstone in terms of the future regarding computers and computer hacking.