Penny Arcade's 'New Kid' strip to be adapted to film by Paramount

by Griffin McElroy on Jun 2nd 2011 8:00PM

We knew it would only be a matter of time before one of Penny Arcade's imaginative one-offs got noticed by the cinematic powers that be. We might have placed our bets on The Lookouts or Automata -- as it so happens, though, the gaming comic's strip which caught the eye of Paramount Studios was "The New Kid," a one-page tale about a boy who's settling into his adolescent life on an orbiting starcraft.

Paramount, which was met with success with its utterly wonderful animated film Rango, has enlisted the help of Book of Eli writer Gary Whitta to adapt the strip to a full-length animated feature. We're excited to see what he comes up with -- and ever-hopeful that somebody somewhere gives some similar attention to Automata. (Please?)

Source: Hollywood Reporter, Penny Arcade

Tags: animated, film, gary-whitta, movie, paramount, penny-arcade, the-new-kid

Reader Comments (44)

That is awesome! An Automata movie would be cool too, but it would be like a buddy cop movie but with robots

@RedFishFire i would imagine an automata movie to be closer to blade runner

@RedFishFire

Or 'I, Robot'.

@damnreds Automata would be like Blade Runner and AI rolled together. I'd still love to see it. I think a movie like that would end up being more like Sin City with robots if Hollywood tried to make it though.

@RedFishFire

Automata would be cool, but The Big - 0 already did it over a decade ago.

@RedFishFire

Well, I know this isn't from Hollywood source, but my friends and I have been working on an Automata short film that we're hoping PA will enjoy enough that they'll let us raise some funds for a proper short film based off the first story arc. There's a thread in the PA forums with some screen shots and other information if anyone's interested.

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=130785

Considering this was the LEAST voted out of the comics, that's awesome. I voted for that comic.

Well, didn't see this coming.

That's strange, wasn't Sand the winner of that contest anyway? Seems weird they would choose to make a film about the idea that didn't win.

@TheDarkWayne

They probably didn't get a choice. I bet Paramount was just like "Okay, New Kid, or nothing."

And I would've said yes, just as they did.

@TheDarkWayne While the others were fine concepts, I don't think most studios particularly care what a poll of the PA readership picked regarding a a basis for a potential children's movie. Now this over Lookouts is something else, but yeah I don't think the other were really options.

And frankly in going back to them, I'd say this WAS in fact the best initial concept.

Yay, a kids movie! Pardon me for not giving a crap. PA is good, but I don't see why everyone jizzes all over everything they've ever produced.

@Misanthropic Gamer ...Because their good people and have more talent in the tip their fingers then your entire body?

This is cool, but Automata would've been so much cooler...

I guess this is cool, but even Lookouts would have been better.

so they're making a movie based on a short comic strip? who's dumb ass idea was that

@aray48

"A farmboy learns magic to save a princess from an evil Empire's fortress."

Oh look, if I made a movie out of that short little idea, it could have been Star Wars.

Everything has to start somewhere, and a solid concept is a solid concept. Consider as well:WE saw a short comic strip, who knows how much else has been written.

@ThePenIsMightier lmao thought your name was "the penis mightier"

also, valid point

This is bullshit.

First of all, Disney already made a movie about a girl who lived on a space station and went down to earth to live with her relatives. It was a Disney Channel movie, and it sucked. This is primed to be a shitty movie, too.

It seems I'm among friends when I say I'd rather see an adaptation of Automata. Of all the Penny Arcade Original Series Things, that was by far the coolest. Someone should at the very least make a fan trailer.

@ch3burashka
I love Automata, and at the very least I hope that if this does well it might get picked up, too.

@ch3burashka It was 3 Disney Channel movies.

@ch3burashka

The problem there is that of all their original stuff, it is the least original. Hey, a detective noir, except we throw in a robot aesthetic somewhere. Ever hear of this little movie called "Blade Runner", which was kinda like that only with much more going on? Or the entire cyberpunk genre? Automata wasn't bad, but it was nothing original or distinct.

Holy shit! That's awesome! I'm so happy for Mike and Jerry right now!

Zetus Lapetus!

That's bizzare, PA had tons of other ideas that readers were much more excited for. Automata especially. A noir robot thriller with political undertones? That would be a dream! Probably too heavy and intelligent to be considered a sure fire hit though. New Kid is pretty lowest common denominator, I'm fairly sure I saw a kid's cartoon with the exact same premise a few years back. Even so, best of luck to them, I hope it's decent.

What happened to Sand anyway? It looked awesome, it won the vote, why didn't we get a Sand story? =(

What. This whole thing seems like a April Fools joke. It's simply silly, because the concept isn't exactly new, so it's bewildering why they chose to base it on the comic strip.

Like everyone else, I think they should have went with Automata.

But I guess they decided that people "can't identify" with a robot that isn't meant to be cute. And you couldn't really cast him as a real, famous actor, and a movie that doesn't do that is a movie that never gets produced.

Woah I wonder how much money Paramount gave the PA guys for this. Gotta be a couple hundred grand at least, yea?

*Insert witty comment about Hollywood running out of ideas here*

@Youthinized

Fast 5.

Although I would have preferred an Automata movie, this is still pretty cool.

what

This kind of blows my mind. But I can't say I am looking forward to Penny Arcade providing the grist for the Hollywood mill. Think of how much garbage you've seen recently based on licensed IPs. Hopefully they retained some editorial control when they sold the rights.

"We came into the office the other day to find that our television was missing, which was sad, because we often use that device to display visual information. We asked Robert what had happened to it, and he said that it was gone; when we asked him again an hour later, he went over to where the television had been and stared intently. Satisfied by his earlier pronouncement, he unleashed his two-fold revelation:

1. Not only was the television gone,
2. It was also not here.

This was terrible news. It was like losing the machine twice, and we mourned a second time."

I LOL'd.

I mention this from time to time, but anybody interested in seeing how a live-action version of Automata might come out should check out at least the first few episodes of Total Recall 2070 on Hulu. It's kind of campy but takes itself seriously, and is basically a cop drama set in the Blade Runner universe.

http://www.hulu.com/total-recall-2070

@LuigiHann No comment on the show, but if they ever made an Automata film, I'd hope it wouldn't be live-action.

I hope that Jerry and Mike keep creative control.

Agreed: Automata is a stunning tale. When science fiction writers tell a story involving robotics and A.I., there's always the ulterior motive of exposing humans at their best and, especially, at their worst.

New Kid is a much simpler premise; much more adaptable. Remove the spaceship and three-quarters-Earth gravity, and you're simply left with a father and son tale about a dad following the jobs in a Great Recession, and a kid that will no doubt confront bullying. Two potentially dull but relevant topics.

Now a movie adaptation of Axe Cop? That'd be surreal.

Probably worth mentioning that Whitta was, among other things, the co-founder of the (original British) PC Gamer magazine and editor-in-chief of its American counterpart.

@Aerothorn Yeah. I grew up reading PC Gamer in the Era of his reign. It was always fascinating and hilarious.

The Book of Eli was a great movie too, though I wouldn't exactly say the writing is what makes it as interesting as it is. Yay cinematography. :D

So will it be just as unfunny/use the same kind of forced, obnoxious humor and irritating characters as the comic version of Penny Arcade?

@Red Runner:

Please, Mr. Buckley, calm down. I'm sure Dreamworks or someone will pick up on Ctrl-Alt-Delete eventually.

Now we just need Rex Ready...

I would have preferred the Lookouts one, tbh. I imagine it being kinda like that kid's cartoon 'Once Upon A Forest', except live action and in a grimmer, traditional fantasy setting :D

I voted for this one, and I'm excited with the rider that Holkins and Krahulik are involved in the process.

Also, please make more Automata! Please. Pretty please?

Penny Arcade's 'New Kid' strip to be adapted to film by Paramount

Reader Comments (44)

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 8:07PM RedFishFire said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 8:24PM damnreds said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 11:40PM The Blank Mage Returns said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 9:32AM TexRob said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 12:22PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 3:36AM SIEGEfilms said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 8:07PM Nergy said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 8:08PM Zal said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 8:09PM TheDarkWayne said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 8:31PM Demon G Sides said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 10:46PM houser said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 8:11PM Misanthropic Gamer said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 8:57PM LittleMofreaky said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 8:17PM Burnflare said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 8:27PM slickie said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 8:46PM aray48 said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 2:19PM ThePenIsMightier said

Posted: Jun 4th 2011 12:02AM aray48 said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 8:48PM ch3burashka said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 9:22PM Irem said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 12:19AM spin cycle said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 2:20PM ThePenIsMightier said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 8:55PM LittleMofreaky said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 9:05PM spin cycle said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 9:39PM joe wright said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 9:41PM Mehbah said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 9:44PM GuardianLegend said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 9:46PM Youthinized said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 11:45PM The Blank Mage Returns said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 10:02PM isawthelight said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 10:12PM Cypher FDP said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 10:29PM Sampo27 said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 10:48PM The Only Girl said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 10:59PM LuigiHann said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 12:20AM Epoque said

Posted: Jun 2nd 2011 11:33PM agneumeyer said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 12:52AM Sensical said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:09AM Aerothorn said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 2:33AM Uniform solidState Messenger said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:57AM Red Runner said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 12:22PM UberTaco said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 6:24AM Esposch said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 7:12AM HSamster said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 8:21AM Hexidecimal said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

WB conjures up Harry Potter for Kinect this fall

Featured Stories

Weekly Webcomic Wrapup is a stranger in a strange land

Silver Lining: I Am Alive's unfeeling world

Game Of Thrones and the paradoxes of adaptation

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW