Live action Pac-Man movie in peril, presumably due to four ghosts

Pac-Man
Share this Article:

The ongoing legal saga surrounding the film It Ends With Us looks ā€“ bizarrely ā€“ to have put pay to a potential Pac-Man movie.


Pac-Man is a character used to living in a perpetual state of danger, given that in each of the original gameā€™s 256 levels, there are menacing ghosts out to get our circular yellow hero. However, at least with Blinky and his crew of spectral companions Pac-Man could pick up a power pill once in a while and turn the tables on them.

Sadly, when it comes to the cutthroat world of Hollywood film production, the videogame icon may be tragically out of his depth. The ghosts of Hollywood are deadlier than those of a 1980s arcade machine.

If you werenā€™t aware, a Pac-Man movie was announced a couple of years ago, with little else emerging in the way of details apart from the reveal that it would be a live-action project. However, various leaks and text messages reportedly seen by The Hollywood Reporter claim that the creative team behind the project was in fact Thor: Ragnarok's Christopher Yost and It Ends With Us' director, Justin Baldoni.

If youā€™ve been anywhere near the internet in the last few months, youā€™ll know that Baldoni is involved in a public and very messy legal dispute with his It Ends With Us co-star, Blake Lively, and is claiming that at his end, he has now lost several roles due to the fallout.

Read more: It Ends With Us | Colleen Hooverā€™s novel makes a dark and uneven drama

According to the outlet, Pac-Man would have been his next project but that is now in serious doubt. Because Baldoni has also been dropped by his agents, WME, THR suggests that his production companyā€™s ability to package ā€˜talentā€™ for projects such as this one has been severely compromised.

Of course, this is Hollywood, so Pac-Manā€™s fate may yet surprise us. The hardy little fellow could resurface at some point with a classic film that rivals any of the recent adaptations featuring other iconic video game characters such as The Super Mario Bros Movie or Sonic The Hedgehog. However, the odds are certainly stacked against this version of the film emerging from an increasingly messy situation.

Still, at least weā€™ll always have the Pac-Man episode of Secret Level, Amazonā€™s recent animated anthology series which tells the story of a different videogame character in each instalment. Never mind that the Pac Man episode is one of the weirdest adaptations weā€™ve ever seen of anything, ever. At least itā€™s something, even if we still arenā€™t sure what that something is.

Weā€™ll bring you more on Pac-Man if and when we hear it.

Share this Article:

More like this