The mind doth boggle
Still, a story free title with little more than effects and explosions, it might be the most authentic game to movie adaptation yet

I'm only watching it if there's no story... like the game.

That does not appear to be the case. From the article:
As opposed to today's games, there is no story line or fancy world-building mythology, so the studio would be creating a plot from scratch. Universal, however, is used to that development process, as it's in the middle of doing just that for several of the Hasbro board game properties it is translating to the big screen, such as "Battleship" and "Candyland."
So... They are in the process of buying rights to IPs which admittedly contain no story elements whatsoever, just to be able to use the names for movies that they are going to write from scratch anyway? With no more than a superficial connection to the original IPs? (I assume "Asteroids" will contain actual asteroids, but that's about it). Why? Who in their right mind would consider this a selling argument, if they were in doubt about watching the movie or not? "Oh, it's a movie adaptation of a game with no characters and no story? I'll definitely watch it then." :-/

In their world they look at it as "Brand recognition" which will bring media attention and get people into the cinema.
It's crazy, but it can work.

The story of a man battling drug addiction, haunted by the ghosts of his past. Coming to theatres this fall, Pac Man!
Reality, it seems, has beaten me to the punch-line.
No different from any other game to movie adaptation.

Brand recognition works when the brand in question has a fan base that likes the story, characters or universe, but all the name 'asteroids' does for me is laugh at the concept that it could be a decent movie. The fact that the game had no plot actually works against the movie. Unless the trailer is decent and sort of spoils most of the movie just so people think there's a plot somewhere in there that might be interesting to watch on the big screen..

Whats next? Arkanoid the movie in 3D!! This one actually has a story now that i thing about it. :D

How about Tetris, The Movie?

Why the hell not?

Ooh thats an angle I hadn't considered, it COULD be about the development of the game, the exciting story of a small team of nerds in the 70s struggling to get a revolutionary game made while the rest of the world has a life and talks to girls. Unlikely considering they could make an effects heavy story free shitfest without having to even think about it
Still the same article mentioned they'd bought the rights to several hasbro board games to adapt into films for fucks sake. When I said it Boggles the mind, I may have been being prophetic

Who is Dirk Freeman?

Hollywood is stupid. They've gotten so desperate they are flailing everywhere for new material. Tons of video game and book adaptions as well as tons of remakes.
This isn't nearly as stupid as some of the other stuff they are doing right now.

Saw this news on Slashdot earlier today. Hollywood isn't even scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas anymore- the bottom is long gone.

Naw, the bottom comes when they decide to make a big-budget summer blockbuster based on Pong.