Oscar nominated actor Leonardo DiCaprio is scheduled to play another American business tycoon on a Hollywood screen. It’s been years since his portrayal of the infamous (while some argue famous) Howard Hughes in The Aviator. Now, he moves onto portraying one of the founding fathers of videogames, as well as one of the industry’s first millionaire Nolan Bushnell in a film entitled Atari.

The movie will be focused on Bushnell’s rise to being one of the 50 people who changed America (as stated by TIME magazine). With a handful of different companies under his belt, his most successful and well-known is the pioneering videogame company called Atari inc. Bushnell founded Atari after his enormous success brought by Pong. A simple game where two players compete with a “paddle” and try to knock a pixel that’s supposed to be a “ball” over to the opponents side. While this may not be the least impressive by today’s standards, it sure caused a phenomenon during the early half of the seventies. There was even a shortage of quarters over a period of time thanks to this game. In 1977, Bushnell’s company released the Atari 2600, which sent parents blazing a trail to the nearest department store or appliance shop. Some time later, Bushnel sold his company to the suits at Time Warner for a whopping $28 million. After that the rest was history.

Hopefully, there will be some cameos or instances in the film that will touch on some interesting trivia about Bushnell’s life. Both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were employed at Atari for some time, and Bushnell was the one who decided to mix America’s love for greasy fast food and their newly found love of videogames at the time in order to come up with Chuck E. Cheese. The Family/Arcade chain grew to 200 restaurants, and Bushnell became a bonafide millionaire by the age of 39.

The film could not have come at a better time. In an age when videogames are getting ready to compete with blockbuster movie figures, and how it is becoming a culturally accepted norm that geeks are cool, the story of Bushnell’s life may inspire and cater to a whole generation of proto-geeks, even the self-proclaimed ones. Just five years ago, before the tongue-in-cheek “geek revolution,” I doubt this wouldn’t have been as a success if it were released sometime around now.

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