Atari signs 10-game deal with Universal for movies based on Pong, Breakout, Centipede, and yes, really, Pong

A Deadline report says Atari, in partnership with management and production company Entertainment 360, has signed a deal that gives Universal Pictures the right to turn 10 of Atari's best-known games into movies.

"For more than five decades, Atari has created games and worlds that have remained part of popular culture long after their original release," Atari chairman and CEO Wade Rosen told the site.

"We are excited to work with Universal and Entertainment 360 to bring the spirit of our iconic brand and games to a new medium."

The games in question are undeniably Atari classics, although not necessarily obvious fodder for film adaptations:

• Asteroids
• Adventure
• Berzerk
• Breakout
• Centipede
• Crystal Castles
• Millipede
• Missile Command
• Pong
• Yes, Pong
• Yars’ Revenge

The intent, according to the report, is to turn the properties into "big-scale action-adventure fare."

"Matt Reilly and I grew up playing Atari 2600 games and have remained fans ever since," said Guymon Casady of Entertainment 360, a producer on the first film to come out of the deal. "The best Atari games dropped you into a world and let your imagination do the rest.

"[Screenplay writers Carl Hampe and Matt Reilly] 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."

Well, they made a Battleship movie, didn't they.

Did it suck? Sure did. Did it make money? Eventually, apparently, although it took some time and a tour of duty on streaming services. Is this sort of thing symptomatic of a creatively bankrupt entertainment industry that's running on the fumes of nostalgia and not a whole lot else? I'm gonna say maybe!

But here's the thing: When I read this Deadline report I immediately had a sense that this had been done before, and I was correct—to an extent. Film projects based on Missile Command and Centipede were announced in 2016, and an Asteroids film project was picked up by Universal in 2009. I don't know whatever came of them (and, as an aside, I would advise caution when searching for Centipede-related movie trailers), although I would assume they all fizzled out. I've dropped a line to Atari to ask about that.

Atari itself seemed destined to meet the same fate, although it appears to have turned things around in recent years with notable and (so far) not-disastrous moves like buying Nightdive and Digital Eclipse, releasing a new Jeff Minter game, finally doing great things with its huge back catalogue, and—this is particularly important—getting away from the crypto business.

Does all of that make me think we're likely to get a good movie based on Breakout? Absolutely not. But it might be fun to watch them try.

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