Leonardo DiCaprio to star in 'Atari'

Leonardo DiCaprio has more fake IDs than Fletch.

The ubiquitous actor-producer has just become attached to star in "Atari," a pitch that writers Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman sold to Paramount on Friday about the godfather of the video game industry, Nolan Bushnell. DiCaprio's Appian Way shingle is producing the biopic, which the filmmakers hope will play with elements from "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "Tucker."

Bushnell was an engineering student, puzzle-lover and game enthusiast (chess, Go, early computer games) who went from fixing broken pinball machines to launching Atari Corp., a video game manufacturer, in the early '70s. Its first product was a little game called Pong that transfixed kids in suburban rec rooms across the country and led to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of video game sales. Within a few years, he sold the company to Warner Communications for $28 million.

During the next three decades, Bushnell started many other tech ventures and also created Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theaters.