In 2015, Pac-Man already had an appearance in the wacky sci-fi comedy Pixel. Now the abstract video game character should get his own film.
Japanese game publisher Bandai Namco is planning a live-action adaptation based on the classic video game Pac-Man. This is reported by the US trade journal The Hollywood Reporter. The young film studio Wayfarer (“Clouds”, “Five Feet Apart”) is said to be responsible for the production, a producer of the film adaptation of “Sonic the Hedgehog” is named as the idea generator. Those responsible should want to build on the financial success of the two Sonic films. With box office earnings of more than 300 and 400 (part 2) million US dollars, both are among the most successful films based on video games.
Two animated series and some guest appearances
Pac-Man (“Puck Man” in Japan) was released in 1980 as an arcade game. With the game, Namco wanted to lure women and children into the arcade halls, where space shooters dominated at the time. The main yellow character was shaped after a pizza that’s missing a slice. She has to eat dots in a maze while escaping the enemy ghosts. When all the points have been eaten up, the game continues on to the next higher level. At that time, the manufacturer did not believe in a great success and was fundamentally mistaken. According to the Guinness Book of Records, Pac-Man is the most profitable arcade machine in the world with revenues of over 3.5 billion US dollars and the game is considered one of the best video games ever.
How exactly those responsible imagine a live-action adaptation of the simple gameplay about the voracious yellow character who has to escape from the ghosts and becomes a hunter himself again and again is still unclear. Pac-Man previously appeared in the 2015 sci-fi comedy Pixels. There have also been two animated television series, and the character, along with the ghosts, has appeared in the Disney films It’s Enough Ralph and Chaos on the Web.
The announcement that has now become public is reminiscent of the reports about a planned live-action adaptation of the classic Tetris. In the meantime, six years ago, it was even said that the story was so big that it could only be told in a film trilogy. Since this somewhat dubious statement, however, there has been no more news, the project seems to have died. Instead, a biographical film about the origins of Tetris is to be released on Apple TV+ later this year.
(mho)
