The pandemic may have changed the movie experience, but apparently there is some work still being done behind the scenes. JoBlo Movie Productions announced that it has partnered with Rock Steady Media to complete Arcade Dreams. This is a multi-part documentary series that covers 100 years of arcade games.
Rock Steady is best known for the documentary Viva Amiga: The Story of a Beautiful Machine. This story on the Amiga PC premiered on Hulu way back in 2017. Rock Steady was founded by Director Zach Weddington in 2012.
On the flip side, JoBlo was founded back in 1998, and since then has become a powerhouse in the movie community offering trailers, reviews, release dates, and even movie news. The JoBlo YouTube network currently has 5 million subscribers with almost 4 billion views.
So how did this collaboration come up? Surprisingly, it was in a pinball forum where Joblo Founder and CEO Berge Garabedian had a chance encounter with Rock Steady. Garabedian immediately discussed the project, considering that he was a lifelong arcade game fan.
In a post, Garabedian revealed that when he saw the teaser trailer, he “immediately wanted to be a part of the production team.” He also believes that with retro gaming and nostalgia from the 80s becoming a major topic nowadays, it was clear that “now is the perfect time for this project.”
In order to be able to finally release Arcade Dreams, a team of experts has been assembled that include Director Zach Weddington and Emmy-winning cinematographer Bill Winters.
Talking about the deal, director Weddington shared that they are happy to partner with JoBlo, which had become such an awesome brand, with Weddington adding that Garabedian “immediately clicked with our vision after our first phone call." Weddington also went on to say that the success of the documentary High Score on Netflix more than proves that people want these kinds of stories. However there a lot of stories that have yet to be told, and Weddington explained that they “know gaming fans have been waiting to hear them.”
Rock Steady plans to launch a Kickstarter this month in order to allow the community to be involved with the project at different levels.
Whatever the case, we hope that Arcade Dreams is going to be released soon so that there’s another show to binge-watch.
