Sega’s racing arcade classic OutRun could be getting a film adaptation at Universal courtesy of director Michael Bay. Let’s hope the news is more than a passing breeze.
As moving as it was, director Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun still left us faintly disappointed that it didn’t involve a young couple racing across 1980s USA in a red Ferrari. Thankfully, Michael Bay could be about to make our retro arcade dreams a reality.
Over the weekend, it was reported that Universal plans to adapt Sega’s 1986 racing coin-op, OutRun, with Michael Bay directing and Sydney Sweeney set to produce (curiously, she isn’t currently thought to be actually appearing in the film). According to Deadline’s exclusive, the OutRun movie will be made through Platinum Dunes, the studio he co-founded with producer Brad Fuller, while the script will be written by Jayson Rothwell.
Videogame adaptations have brought in sizeable returns for film studios in recent years, with Sonic The Hedgehog – another Sega franchise – being a success for Paramount, The Super Mario Bros Movie making over a billion for Universal and A Minecraft Movie breaking records for Warner Bros. On the TV side of things, HBO’s The Last Of Us has continued its run of success into its second season.
Bolstered by the response to Sonic, Sega has previously talked about rooting through its archive to find more games to adapt for cinemas. We made a tongue-in-cheek attempt to predict what games Sega might choose in 2023 – and curiously, at least three of those predictions have subsequently been announced as actual movie or TV productions. A Shinobi movie was announced in 2024, as was an animated series based on Golden Axe. A film based on the brawler franchise Streets Of Rage was previously talked about in 2022.
Read more: 8 classic Sega games we’d like to see turned into movies
OutRun was also on our list. A classic game that involves driving a Ferrari Testarossa along sun-drenched open roads, it quickly became famous not just for its exhilarating sense of speed and mechanical sit-down cabinet, but also for Hiroshi Kawaguchi’s catchy soundtrack. In our list, we predicted that the OutRun movie would be directed by Lynne Ramsey and star Barry Keoghan and Emma Roberts as the young couple sitting in the car.
For what it’s worth, this was our not-at-all-serious film pitch:
At the behest of a heartless movie mogul (David Zaslav, cameoing as himself), young gopher Geoff (Keoghan) is tasked with driving a brand new Ferrari from New York to Los Angeles in less than 36 hours – without being caught speeding. Or crashing. Roberts stars as a casting director along for the ride who, curiously, doesn’t say a single word to Geoff for the entire journey. Script by Steve Zaillian.
Knowing how the internet works these days, Google’s search results will probably be spitting that out as a genuine synopsis within the next week or two.
Michael Bay, a filmmaker best known for such action films as Bad Boys, The Rock and the Transformers franchise, recently turned his hand to documentary filmmaking with We Are Storror. Could OutRun be his next project? His high-octane filmmaking style would certainly be a logical fit.
More news on OutRun as it comes in.
