WARGAMES Remake has a New Writer and Director
MGM is still planning on developing that remake of Matthew Broderick's 1983 classic WarGames. Horrible Bosses director Seth Gordon was attached to develop it at one point, but he has since dropped out of the project. The studio is now in negotiations with Dean Israelite to direct the feature. They also are brining on Arash Amel (Grace of Monaco) to rewrite the screenplay, previously scripted by Noah Oppenheim. I'm not familiar with anything that Israelite has done, so I have no idea if he's a solid choice or not. The studio obviously saw something in him.
The original film followed a young computer prodigy who hacks into a government system and accidentally initiates a computerized countdown to a nuclear weapons launch. All the while he thinks he's just playing a game.
No one has been officially cast in the project yet, but according to reports the studio has been looking at both Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars) and Tye Sheridan (Mud) as potential actors to take on the lead role.
I'm a huge fan of the original movie, and I can see why the studios would want to remake it with all the technological advances that the world has made since 1983. I'm not very keen on this movie being remade, but since they're already doing it I can only hope that it turns out decent. I'm not expecting it to be better than the original though.
Source: The Warp