<P> David Lightman was modeled on David Scott Lewis, a hacking enthusiast Parkes and Lasker met . Falken was inspired by and named after Stephen Hawking, with the appearance of John Lennon, who was interested in the role, but was murdered in New York while the script was in development . General Beringer was based on General James V. Hartinger (USAF) the then - commander - in - chief of NORAD, who Parkes and Lasker met while visiting the base, and who, like Beringer, favored keeping humans in the decision loop . </P> <P> Martin Brest was originally hired as director but was fired after 12 days of shooting because of a disagreement with the producers, and replaced with John Badham . Several of the scenes shot by Brest remain in the final film . Badham said that "(Brest had) taken a somewhat dark approach to the story and the way it was shot . It was like (Broderick and Sheedy) were doing some Nazi undercover thing . So it was my job to make it seem like they were having fun, and that it was exciting ." According to Badham, Broderick and Sheedy were "stiff as boards" when they came onto the sound stage, having both Brest's dark vision and the idea that they would soon be fired . Badham did 12 to 14 takes of the first shot to loosen the actors up . At one point, Badham decided to have a race with the two actors around the sound stage with the one who came last having to sing a song to the crew . Badham lost and sang "The Happy Wanderer", the silliest song he could think of . </P> <P> Tom Mankiewicz says he wrote some additional scenes during shooting that were used . </P> <P> WarGames did well at the North American box office, earning $79,567,667, the fifth - highest of 1983 . The film was screened out of competition at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival . </P>

Funny game. the only way to win is not to play