The Making of Willy’s Wonderland Pinball

I should probably begin by introducing myself. I have worked in the film and animatronics industry mostly as a puppet and specialty prop builder for the past 15 years. My interest in pinball machines was really piqued when The Pinball Arcade released in 2012. It rekindled my love of pinball machines which I hadn’t laid hands on since I was a kid. By the time I was in my 20s arcades practically didn’t exist in Georgia. I bought a beat up Terminator 2 and immediately began obsessing over refurbishing. I removed the playfield and did some touch ups where the ball had scuffed into the paint. The fact that these touch ups had to be done by hand really planted a seed in my mind. Why couldn’t I just do an entire playfield with my own art? Why couldn’t a pinball machine be done as a one off, playable painting?

Several years later I bought a Demolition Man pinball to start my own total conversion project. I am still working on it to this day but haven’t shared much of the process online. A person who had seen the project though was Molly Coffee, a production designer that I work with often. She contacted me about a film she was working on involving a man trapped inside a themed restaurant who battles animatronics. The script involved him playing an arcade game and the idea of a pinball machine was brought up.

We agreed to a price point and I started work on finding a table. The machine needed to be retro and I began looking for alphanumeric table. I started getting assets from the film to consider as sets were being built. Willy’s Wonderland is a bit like Showbiz Pizza but they sell hot dogs. It has a ball pit, an arcade, a “fairy forest”, and a special party room for birthdays. I wanted to find a table that could feel like you are inside of the restaurant. Different areas of the machine could represent these different sections. I settled on a 1982 Devil’s Dare that had recently been shopped and clear coated and started sending ideas to the filmmakers. Here are some initial ideas: