Barry Levinson’s box-office flop ‘Toys’ predicted the future of warfare | CNN

Barry Levinson’s “Toys” is hard to track down today. It was supposed to be a highlight of the 1992 holiday movie season, a major-studio comedy release with a cast that included Robin Williams, Joan Cusack, LL Cool J, and a cameo from Jamie Foxx for his first film credit. But despite Levinson’s sterling prior directing record, the big names, and an acclaimed set design, audiences avoided it. It went down in film history as a notorious failure, and it’s all but unavailable on contemporary streaming platforms. Yet lately, people have been rediscovering the film in clip form. “Toys” tells the story of a a warmongering, slightly deranged military officer named Leland Zevo who commandeers his brother’s toy factory for weapons production, starting with cartoony tanks and spyware hidden inside teddy bears, before realizing the real vanguard is in video games. Toward the end, the movie reveals that Zevo has created a secret bunker where kids play immersive video games that are supposed to simulate war — piloting virtual attack helicopters and blowing up bridges, highways and enemy boats on pixelated battlefields while point values flash on the screen. In fact, he is prepar