Few video game franchises have been as ubiquitous—or as suddenly, sorely missed—as the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series. Inspired by the real-life Hawk (he of roughly five thousand Twitter posts where people tell him he looks like Tony Hawk), the games essentially invented a new genre of combo and C-O-M-B-O-hunting sports action, eating up god knows how many hours of human attention, and getting the musical stylings of Goldfinger stuck in a generation of players’ heads. (And Public Enemy. And The Ramones. And N.W.A. And Dead Kennedys. Those soundtracks!)
But while there hasn’t been a new Tony Hawk game since 2015—and a new good entry in the series since, arguably, 2007—there is some exciting THPS news tonight, with Variety reporting that Pretending I’m A Superman, the long-in-the-works documentary about the series’ success, is finally moving forward. First launched back in 2015 (complete with crowdfunding efforts), the reportedly completed film has now secured a distribution deal. Directed by Ludvig Gür, and with Hawk heavily involved, the film explores the development of the series by designer Neversoft, its influence on the resurgence of skater culture in the early 2000s, and, hopefully, also how to get the secret tape on the Big Apple map in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, because our older brother knows where it is, but he keeps refusing to show us.
Wood Entertainment has purchased the rights to the film; no word yet on when, or in what form, it’ll see a release.