Back in 2010 a very cool little animated short by French filmmaker Patrick Jean titled Pixels took the ‘net by storm. In it, a variety of classic arcade games invade New York City.

Not long after that came word that Adam Sandler‘s Happy Madison had acquired the rights to develop a feature-length adaptation of the short, and that Tim Herlihy would be writing the screenplay.

Now comes word that Sandler himself will star in the movie, and it looks like he’ll be joined by at least one old friend as Grown Ups co-star Kevin James and Josh Gad (Frozen) have entered into negotiations to star as well.

Sandler is also hoping to reunite with his Just Go With It co-star Jennifer Aniston as the female lead, but other commitments might prevent that. Other actors are said to be in the mix for the movie as well, so expect some more familiar names to be joining the cast.

Herlihy wrote the first draft for the script, but it was decided that a larger scale action-comedy was wanted, and so Sandler’s Just Go With It writer Tim Dowling was brought in for a new draft that won approval.

Horrible Bosses and Identity Thief director Seth Gordon will executive produce the movie, brought in due to his experience with video game-related movies. Gordon made the documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, and was also recently nabbed to direct an adaptation of the hit Naughty Dog video game Uncharted.

What the movie will be about specifically has not been revealed, though it is rumored that it will involve expert gamers being brought in by the government to deal with the invading games.

I imagine it’ll be a little something like that one time on Futurama.

[Source: The Wrap]