The 1983 film WarGames is well-suited for an update—the vast advancement in video game technology in the past three decades opens the door for a fresh take on the material.  According to Heat Vision, MGM has hired Noah Oppenheim for the task.  The up-and-coming screenwriter does not yet have a produced credit, but he has several projects in development.  There’s the Snabba Cash remake, a Jackie Kennedy biopic produced by Steven Spielberg, an adaptation of The Maze Runner, and the wonderfully titled The Secret Life of Houdini.  I’ll wait to see one of these movies before I praise him too much, but there’s something to be said for a screenwriter who convinces so many employers of his greatness.  Plus, it is appropriate that a man named Oppenheim will write the movie about a boy who nearly starts a nuclear war when he thinks he’s playing a video game.

Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) will direct WarGames for MGM.  Read about his approach to the remake after the jump.

This afternoon, Collider got the opportunity to do an exclusive phone interview with director Seth Gordon, to talk about his hilarious and outrageous new comedy Horrible Bosses, out in theaters on July 8^th.  Since it was just announced that he has signed on to develop the remake of the 1983 sci-fi thriller WarGames, that co-starred Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, we were able to talk to him about that as well.

While we will run the portion of the interview about Horrible Bosses closer to that film’s release date, we wanted to post what he had to say about his WarGames remake today.  Gordon told us that he was attracted to the project because he loves the original and is a bit of a hacker fanatic himself, he has a real point-of-view on the material and how the world has changed since the original film, and that he sees the attention on the project as a cool challenge to make the best film they possibly can. Check out what he had to say after the jump.

Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke is attached to helm Dot War, an action-adventure that’s described as a mix between Real Genius and War Games.  According to Pajiba, the film is about, “video-game programmer who is trained by the government to fight terrorist using virtual technology.”  We kind of do that now with drone bombers, so I assume this is more like fighting terrorism on the ground, but with a leveling system and cover behind chest-high walls.

Despite her split from the Twilight franchise over her desire to have more time to prep New Moon (I imagine the extra time would be so she could wrestle with the idea of using a color other than blue in the movie), Hardwicke’s kept busy.  She’s attached to direct a modern-day telling of Hamlet starring Emile Hirsch, and she’s in the process of casting The Girl with the Red Riding Hood, a gothic retelling of the Red Riding Hood fairy tale.

Pajiba notes that none of Hardwicke’s projects have a greenlight and her participation on Dot War will be based on whether or not she likes a rewrite of the script.