Dutch Pinball announced The Big Lebowski Jesus Edition on Monday, a collector's edition built around John Turturro's Jesus Quintana character and limited to 300 individually numbered machines (a perfect game in bowling, duh). "For a machine dedicated to The Jesus, no other number would do," the company wrote.
A Jesus Edition has been rumored for months, and a new Big Lebowski run has been sitting on our upcoming machines tracker.
Reservations are open now through Dutch Pinball or its distributors, first deliveries are scheduled for September, and a launch trailer is coming. It's $14,995 in the US and Canada before sales tax, and €15,995 in Europe with VAT included.
New art, new trim, new code. The cabinet, backglass, playfield artwork and plastics have all been redone in a purple-and-magenta color scheme, with Jesus featured prominently.
Also new: DP Crystal cabinet decals, a custom sculpted bowling alley front with an illuminated launch button, custom inner art blades, anti-reflective glass, an illuminated Starry Lit apron, and a numbered Certificate of Authenticity. The software adds features, gameplay enhancements, and callouts. The rug is once again included. The pitch ends where you'd expect: "this machine really ties the room together."
Underneath, it's the game people already know: the Brunswick bowling alley with ten individually controlled pins, three flippers, the multi-level playfield, the Dude's Car and Rug bash toys, up to 5-ball multiball, 101 lit inserts and more than 200 clips from the film, produced under exclusive license from Universal Pictures.
The last thing the company had going was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which shipped under the DPX sub-brand. DPX wound down in February when Melvin Williams exited the company. The Jesus Edition is the first new product out of Dutch Pinball's facilities since.
The dealer copy calls this "the most exclusive edition before Dutch Pinball looks to the future and its next generation of games," with new investment partners and expanded production facilities behind it.
So this is the send-off. Big Lebowski production ends with 300 Jesus units and a public nod to an upcoming game.
Though Dutch hasn't gone as far as to publicly confirm their next title, they continue to drop hints. Take today's Facebook launch copy: "But before we look to the future and the road ahead, we wanted to give one of our most beloved games the special edition it has always deserved." Those who follow the pinball rumor cycle know Back to the Future has been tied to Dutch Pinball for years. It's one of those titles that's an open secret at this point.
For more information on the Jesus Edition, see DutchPinball.com.
Colin is the chief pixel pusher at Kineticist. He's a lifetime gamer who became enamored with pinball after taking in a family copy of the 1979 classic Joker Poker (the EM version). Since then he's bought, sold and repaired many machines, competed in all kinds of tournaments, and contributes to This Week in Pinball, the New England Pinball League, and Pin-Masters of New England. Previously, Colin spent over a decade working in marketing for agencies and tech startups. He also started and ran a music blog, happy hour website, and wrote a regular craft beer review column for Central Track in Dallas. Once aspired to be an artsy film director.
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