Legendary video game company Atari has signed a deal with Universal Pictures to turn a bunch of its classic games into movies.
Deadline reports that Atari partnered with production company Entertainment 360 for the deal and has given the rights to 10 games to Universal. Those ten games are Asteroids, Adventure, Berzerk, Breakout, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Millipede, Missile Command, Pong, and Yar’s Revenge.
Kicking off the collaboration is an original spec script that’s been acquired by the studio, written by former executive Matt Reilly and alongside writer Carle Hampe. What game it’s for, though, is currently under wraps.
“For more than five decades, Atari has created games and worlds that have remained part of popular culture long after their original release,” said Atari chairman and CEO Wade Rosen in a statement. “We are excited to work with Universal and Entertainment 360 to bring the spirit of our iconic brand and games to a new medium.”
“Matt Reilly and I grew up playing Atari 2600 games and have remained fans ever since,” added Entertainment 360’s Guymon Casady about the first film they’re working on. “The best Atari games dropped you into a world and let your imagination do the rest. Carl and Matt saw an opportunity to take that same spirit and build an original, large-scale adventure around it. From the moment we read the screenplay, we believed there was a great movie here.”
