If you’re a football fan, you know of The Madden Curse. If you’re a geek who gets nervous at the mere thought of sports (don’t worry, you’re among friends), you might still know about it, since it’s dark source is a video game cover.
If you don’t know about it at all, well, here’s the rundown. Since 1999, NFL players who have the luck to appear on EA’s Madden game cover have gone on to doom. They’ve all suffered lousy performances or terrible injuries, some of which wiped them out for an entire season. New Orleans Saints’ QB Drew Brees is the current poster boy and has managed to escape the curse … for now.
But now fate has been tempted. According to The Wrap, EA Sports is actually developing a movie themed around the idea, titled (of course) The Madden Curse. The plot will center on “The story will follow a former Madden video game champion who is forced out of retirement just as he finds himself on the corner of the game’s cover — and subject to the curse.”
So far, this isn’t any further than EA Entertainment, so there’s no need to rail at Hollywood just yet … until, of course, a studio actually does pick it up. And on that inevitable day, may I suggest they change the plot around to actually include the forces of evil? The Madden Curse could be about a gypsy or witch doctor who is angry about John Madden breaking a sacred talisman or a promise to offer up his firstborn, thus leading to a curse placed on the Madden franchise forever. It will fall to the 2012 cover boy to take on the evil, and end the curse forever.
That cover boy? An older player and a fan favorite who is enjoying a career renaissance, until he is granted the EA cover. That player? Nicolas Cage.
Now there’s a Madden Curse movie worth its celluloid. Ok, probably not, but I think I was more imaginative than EA Entertainment.