Skins and a template already exist for the Punch-Out film. The true problem in creating a movie based on the game would be using Mac and Doc as characters. The world needs another inspirational based on the little guy like it needs another hole in the ozone layer. Sea Biscuit and that one where Marky Mark from New Kids on the Block makes the Eagles with good vibrations is enough. Thus, we would need a sound director with both a proven script and an Oscar-worthy leading man. Put your tape in an “X” over your belly-button, grab a bottle of vodka, and hold on to your upper-cut stars. This is how you make a Punch-Out film, bitches!
Again, we do not need to focus on the actual main character of the games. Mac was a transparent dwarf with no personality. On the one hand, it would be great to see the Station Agent from Game of Thrones (Peter Dinklage) play him, but wouldn’t fans rather see a character with as much personality as baggage? This hand is the best option, and it reveals that the main character for the Punch-Out film is Soda Popinski. Soda is still mocked as one of the worst stereo-types in gaming history. So?
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Above: Peter Dinklage would make an amazing Mac. But, Mac sucks, so we are going with the amazingly deep Soda Popinski!
Soda Popinski’s original name was Vodka Drunkenski. He chugs vodka constantly in the manner of a raging addict, but the NES version changed his alcohol to soda. Critics bashed him for being the metaphorical embodiment of professional athletes who use drugs. Without mothers-little-helper, neither Soda nor Mark McGwire were the same. However, if they juiced up, then they could accomplish anything. Mark McGwire set the home-run record in MLB and Soda (aka Vodka) won a title in Punch-Out. Soda was also lambasted for being a racial stereo-type, which seems rather unfair when we point out why we have cast Mickey Rourke to play him.
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Above: “Da Popinski answer phone rike Shark. Gho vor Soda! Ya?!”
Do you remember Iron Man 2? It was a horrible mess of schlock, though letting Mickey Rourke do lines of coke and play himself was inspired. Think about it. The only reason to ever sit-through Iron Man 2 again is to watch Rourke do his thick Russian accent and proclaim inane rants that begin with “Da Sharks” and end with “Ya?!”
Secondly, don’t you dare think that Iron Man 2 has anything else to do with the Punch-Out movie template. It simply establishes that Mr. Rourke can play a drunken Russian.
To ensure that Punch-Out would get the best from everyone, it would need to be attached to a director who got Mickey to the Oscars. Darren Aronofsky would, therefore, be that man. Intelligent studios would pay him a cool $10,000,000 to use the find and replace feature on the WORD version of the script for The Wrestler. He could simply find the name Randy “The Ram” Robinson and replace it with Soda Popinski. A few delete strokes and the title header is ready to be changed to Punch-Out: Soda Popinski.
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- Above: A copy of The Wrestler could easily be altered to make a great movie based on a game.
With the leading man and director attached, it is now time to get some strong supporting cast members. One of the major faults with bringing other video games to the silver-screen was the insistence to wedge every character from said title into the movie. Such poor planning led the live-action Street Fighter to transform E. Honda into a camera-man, and the cast and script became meaningless as a whole. As a result, all 28 fighters, 30 if you include Mac and Doc, are not in the film. This version of Punch-Out is aiming to be the first game adaptation that deserves an Oscar. Just as The Dark Knight and The Avengers proved comics could be tent-pole franchises, so Punch-Out would solidify game adaptations in the same mold.
Marissa Tomei would take on the role of Glass Joe. She would also be Soda’s love-interest, just as she was The Ram’s in The Wrestler. To establish this, she would need some brief back-story moments where other fighters, like Peter Dinklage as Mac, pummel him. Yes, Glass Joe was a male because Punch-Out never had any female fighters. But, it would be implied that Glass Joe was so damaged and humiliated that he had surgery to become a woman. Ladies and gentlemen, Glass Joanne.
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- This summer, Marisa Tomei is Glass Joe!
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Man, I feel like a woman!
To fortify the cast, Evan Rachel Wood would recycle her role as Soda’s problematic, homosexual daughter that he abandoned when she was young. When pitching this idea, the set-up to include how Glass Joanne, Soda Popinski, and his daughter, Stephanie fit like square-pegs would read as follows:
At Glass Joanne’s (Marisa Tomei) suggestion, Soda Popinksi (Mickey Rourke) visits his estranged adult daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), whom he abandoned when she was a child. She curses him for not being a supportive father and rejects him. When Glass Joanne meets with Soda to buy gifts for Stephanie, Randy makes romantic advances on her which she rejects on the grounds of her new job as a stripper. Soda gives the gifts to his daughter and apologizes. The two bond over a visit to a beachfront boardwalk, and they agree to meet for dinner on the coming Saturday. Soda goes to Glass Joanne’s strip club to thank her but she once more rejects his romantic feelings, which results in an angry exchange. Upset, Soda spectates a boxing match and receives friendly attention from fellow boxers Von Kaiser, King Hippo, Bald Bull, Great Tiger and Don Flamenco. Soda gets drunk with them at a bar, snorts cocaine, and has sex with Don Flamenco in the bathroom. He sleeps the entire next day and misses his dinner with Stephanie. He goes to her house at night to apologize, but she cries and tells him to break it off permanently.
Indeed, Soda goes off the deep-end. He visits doctors and scores steroids and alcohol from his fellow boxers. These other boxers that appear in bit-roles, like King Hippo, would foreshadow at the sequels to come. The Punch-Out franchise would be a gold-mine because the success of the Soda entry would guarantee another 27 sequels.
Furthermore, seeing Soda gripped by his vodka and drug addictions would tug at the world’s heartstrings. Just as the above picture shows, he would be confined to a small living space, broke, as well as negotiating boxing matches that pay very little, during which he constantly drinks vodka.
The climax would also parallel The Wrestler. As Soda spins back to release his infamous super-move, the movie ends. The audience knows he is going to die, his heart flailing from decades of substance abuse.
Next, Mickey Rourke would accept the Oscar for best actor. Studios like Sony and Disney would start buying EVERYTHING! A few misses like Dig Dug, starring Vin Diesel in the titular role with One Direction as the aliens that pumps explode, are bound to appear. Regardless, the $800,000,000,000 surplus of Punch-Out: Soda Popinski from domestic and local theaters would guarantee a vast salary for gifted idea-men who know how to use the find and replace option in WORD correctly.
Finally, if you still haven’t bought in, bitches, then watch Mickey Rourke’s audition tape for the Soda Popinski role below. He’s immaculate, like Madonna’s greatest hits- Which he threw! BANTER!!!
Chris Patton is the best-selling author of Mormons in the Attic. It tells the story of an aged, senile Barak Obama, who allows Mormon missionaries to enter his house and share their testimonies. When he forgets to take his medication, the former President halucinates and mistakes the Mormons for George Bush and Geraldine Ferrarro. What transpires is best described as haunting. You can read more of Chris’s stories at WASDUK.com and LaserLemming.com
