Wayfarer Studios was founded by Justin Baldoni (Jane the Virgin) and Steve Sarowitz. Baldoni, Manu Gargi, and Andrew Calof are set to produce Pac-Man, while Williams and Tim Kwok will also join as producers on the project on behalf of Lightbeam.
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Per The Hollywood Reporter, the Pac-Man film will be based on an original idea conceived by Williams himself. The hugely popular video game Pac-Man has been around since the 1980s and remains a classic to this day. The game features the titular Pac-Man navigating mazes of increasing difficulty while gobbling up dots and Power Pellets and avoiding four ghosts. Once Pac-Man can munch a Power Pellet, the ghosts turn blue and can be eaten for bonus points for a short amount of time. The aim of the game is to rack up the points and clear all the dots in the maze to progress. The game was so popular that it spawned a huge amount of sequels, including Ms. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, and Pac In Time, to name just a few.
There has also been a steady stream of merchandise with everything from plush toys to phones to a $20,000 14-karat gold Ms. Pac-Man choker. Merchandise alone for the series had generated over one billion dollars in revenue by 1982 alone. The game has also had two previous on-screen adaptations in the form of animated series. The first, simply titled Pac-Man, was produced by Hanna-Barbera and ran from 1982 to 1983. In 2013, the computer animated series Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures aired on Disney XD.
The announcement follows a resurgence in video game adaptations, with a Super Mario Bros film starring Chris Pratt as the voice of Mario and a Tetris film starring Taron Egerton on the horizon. These projects follow other recent adaptations such as the Sonic the Hedgehog film and its sequel starring Ben Schwartz as the blue blur and the recent movie and television adaptations of Resident Evil.
At the time of the announcement, there are no plot details or casting decisions available, which begs the question, what could a live-action Pac-Man movie be about? Although there’s no information available, the adaptation is in good hands with Williams after the surprise blockbuster success of both Sonic films.
Pac-Man is currently in development.
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Source: The Hollywood Reporter
