Kushner's Masters of Doom gets a TV pilot deal

David Kushner's book on the founding of gaming pioneer id Software, Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture, is to be form the basis of a TV series prduced by James and Dave Franco's Ramona Films.

First published in 2003, David Kushner's Masters of Doom positions itself as 'the true inside story of the Lennon and McCartney of the video game industry: John Carmack and John Romero [who] created an empire, riled a multibillion-dollar industry, and provoked a national controversy [...] until the games they made tore them apart.' Beginning with stories of the pair's childhoods - including Romero being beaten by his stepfather 'until the boy had a fat lip and a black eye' for having visited the verboten local arcade - the book chronicles the founding of id Software and its rise to success on the back of early platform titles before it cemented its place in history with seminal first-person shooters Doom and Quake.

Written with an eye for the personal anecdote, Kushner's book has been unsurprisingly optioned for a TV series with Deadline pointing to a deal that will see James and Dave Franco's Ramona Films producing a pilot for the USA Network.

Details of the project, including a potential air date, have not been released, beyond the fact that if the pilot proves successful USA Network plans to create an anthology series which uses Kushner's book as only the first instalment. The pilot is being written for TV by Tom Bissel, known for his work on the Gears of War and Uncharted franchises as well as his own book Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter, who also acts as executive producer.

No casting has yet been confirmed.