Adam Sandler, Josh Gad, and Kevin James to Star in 'Pixels'

About four years ago, Adam Sandler picked up the rights to Patrick Jean's video game-inspired short film, Pixels, with plans of turning it into a family-friendly film. Last year Christopher Columbus was in talks to direct, and now it looks like a recent rewrite of the script has convinced Sandler to go ahead and star in it himself, and he may not be the only one coming aboard.

The Wrap reports that an updated script by Just Go with It writer Tim Dowling is what lured Sandler in to star, with Columbus now confirmed as director. Meanwhile, Kevin James and Josh Gad are in talks to join the film, which is clearly still in the very early stages. Sandler's Just Go with It co-star Jennifer Aniston is being looked at for the female lead but her schedule on the upcoming comedy Mean Moms could prevent it.

The Pixels short film is a lot of fun, and has aliens attacking New York City using 1980s video game characters and levels. It should make for quite the big screen spectacle, which may be why development has taken so long. Dowling is said to have made the concept even broader in scope, and to help out Seth Gordon (The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters) was brought on as an exec-producer.

Check out the short film version of Pixels below.