Live-action Pac-Man movie is in the works

If Sonic the Hedgehog’s success is anything to go by, Pac-Man’s live action adaptation could work. It could also crash and burn, as many adaptations have.

Bandai Namco Entertainment, a video game publisher and owner of the PAC-MAN IP, is reportedly working on a live-action PAC-MAN movie, because of course they are.

First discovered by The Hollywood Reporter, the project is apparently a joint venture between Bandai Namco and Wayfarer Studios, a production company formed by Justin Baldoni and Steve Sarowitz.

The project supposedly has an original plot, written by Chuck Williams of Lightbeam Entertainment, who worked on the previous Sonic the Hedgehog movies.

What remains to be seen is how the studios will convert PAC-MAN into a live-action tale that doesn’t follow the trail most video-game-to-movie adaptations tend to go down.

PAC-MAN, as I’m sure you already know, is a pretty simplistic game where a yellow puck with a mouth travels around a maze, eating pellets and fruit, and avoiding ghosts — until he eats a power pellet, and then goes around eating the ghosts as well.

There have been recent attempts at creating a world for PAC-MAN — Pac-Man World, a PlayStation 1 game, featuring Pac-Man travelling around 3D environments to stop the ghosts from kidnapping his friends.

The newer, less popular “Pacster” design of Pac-Man. Picture: Bandai Namco

While that was a commercial success, other entries have not been as lucky. Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures was a Disney XD attempt at bringing Pac-Man to a younger generation. While some parts of the world reviewed it favourably, most viewers rated it negatively.

Pac-Man was redesigned to a new “Pacster” design, which was not as popular as the original design featured in games like Super Smash Bros.

Bandai Namco is certainly taking a risk, but with its recent successes, the company can probably afford to.

Elden Ring smashed sales records and review scores, making it one of the most popular video games in the world, even outselling Call of Duty, which lost 30 million users in one year.

Bandai Namco was also the target of a ransomware attack, causing an unknown amount of data related to the various businesses tied to the company.

At this time, the extent of the damage is still being investigated, but it appears to be localised towards their Asian and Japanese markets.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF