We’re living in an entirely new moment of cinema. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie is only the beginning of the American cinema’s very own French New Wave phenomenon—call it the Great Product Period of the 21st Century. A number of bizarre brand-based projects are already in the works (Barbie, a movie about Uno, Lena Dunham’s Polly Pocket movie), and now, Hollywood has really upped the ante with: here comes a live-action Pac-Man film.
How you can make a yellow chomping circle into a live-action event is beyond me. Didn't we already have The Emoji Movie? But where there’s a will, there’s a way. Jane the Virgin alum Justin Baldoni has assembled a team under his Wayfarer Studios production company—though as of now, the actor hasn’t joined the film’s cast. He’s currently only set to serve as producer.
The studio has yet to announce any plot details (though we predict colorful ghosts will be hungry for some Pac-Man blood), but the idea comes from Chuck Williams, who most recently worked on the Sonic the Hedgehog live-action saga. Apparently, the director has a penchant for tapping existing video game IP for silver screen stories.
In the last year, this brand-to-movie ridiculousness seems to have reached an all-time high. There’s the Barbie movie—which, legend has it, has one of the best scripts of all time—but there’s also the Polly Pocket movie, the Pop-Tarts movie, and the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos movie on the way. The good will around The Lego Movie has persisted into something much bigger than anyone could ever imagine.
But this isn’t the first time Pac-Man has ventured off the game into new territory. Released in the United States in 1980, the beloved video game has spawned two television series as well. In 1982, ABC ran Pac-Man for two seasons, and a few decades later, Disney XD released Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures.
Neither of those, however, are live-action series. This will be the first take on a live-action Pac-Man—maybe a yellow tennis ball voiced by Chris Pratt would like to audition for the role?
