Ed Cunningham Directing ‘Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad Of Walter Day,’ Follow-Up To Cult Classic Slamdance Doc ‘The King Of Kong’
29.02.2024 - 19:28
/ deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Nearly two decades after producing The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a video game documentary that’s emerged as a cult classic since its unveiling at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival, Ed Cunningham has wrapped production on Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad Of Walter Day, a follow-up film picking up with his documentary subject, known as the father of Esports.
Directed by Seth Gordon, The King of Kong offered a look into the world of competitive arcade gaming with a focus on the quest for the high score in the classic arcade game Donkey Kong. The specific focus of the film is the intense rivalry between two gamers: the reigning champion, restaurateur Billy Mitchell, and underdog challenger, Steve Wiebe. As Wiebe relentlessly pursues the Donkey Kong high score, he faces obstacles and skepticism from the gaming community, particularly from Mitchell and the organization Twin Galaxies, which oversees video game records. As the documentary unfolds, it reveals the lengths to which these competitors will go to achieve gaming glory.
The founder of Twin Galaxies, which in 1983 was established as the official supplier of verified video game scores to Guinness World Records, Day is introduced in The King of Kong as ‘the world’s video game referee,’ the authority hovering over the competition between Mitchell and Wiebe. A date-night, musical documentary, Arcades & Love Songs finds him battling a lawsuit that threatens his legacy at the age of 74, while fulfilling his dream of recording and performing the rock-opera style love songs he has been hearing in his head for much of his life.
The documentary follow-up was presaged by a scene in The King of Kong in which Day reveals that he had his heartbroken in the
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