The main reason for no MM remake is because the rights were tied up for years with a company in Australia. The guy took deposits but never produced the game. And it seems fairly clear (at least to me) he either didn't truly have the means or the desire to do so. Depositors who have asked have received their deposits back, so it's not like he's made off with the cash.

However, my (purely speculative) feeling is for all the deposits he still has possession of, I bet he's making a nice chunk of change in interest. Given he started the project several years ago... well, do the math. I guess one upside of this whole bank meltdown is interest rates have fallen through the floor.

The Williams rights were resold to a California company, however, as I understand it, the repro rights for MM stayed with the Australian company. I might be missing a couple details but that's the gist of it.

More info:

http://tinyurl.com/6pyvfes

I interpret planetary's post as meaning "yeah, we know this guy is never going to get his act together and do the remake, but if hell freezes over, we pledge to support the effort." So they can earn a little public goodwill by pledging to be supportive, knowing there is a 99.9999% chance they won't have to follow through. It's like promising to give a guy a job when he gets out of prison, only he has 10 life sentences.

I'm excited about what JJP is doing but Jack is a businessman way before a pinball lover. He is making pinball games because he thinks he can make money at it.