Box office film star Leonardo DiCaprio is set to produce and star in a biopic about Nolan Bushnell, the founder of the legendary American games company Atari that created early arcade hits including Pong.
Bushnell started out repairing broken pinball machines before co-founding Atari Corporation in 1972. Early employees included Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and within six months Bushnell had sold the company for $28m after creating Pong and the Atari 2600 games console.
In 1977 he went on to establish the popular US chain of restaurant amusement arcades Chuck E Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatres, which now has 200 branches.
Bushnall, who became a millionaire by the age of 39, turned down several requests to have his life turned into a film before agreeing to the DiCaprio project.
