Atari agrees deal for Pong movie and more classic arcade games

Iconic developer Atari has signed a deal that allows 10 of its classic games to be made into movies, including Pong and Asteroids.

Long before games were the hyper-realistic giants we know today, many fans grew up playing simpler titles in arcades or on early consoles, a lot of which were produced by Atari. This includes Pong, which is credited as being one of the first commercially successful games when it was released in 1972.

Now, Atari is looking to follow in the footsteps of Sony and Nintendo by bringing some of its biggest games from the 70s and 80s to the big screen.

Universal secures movie rights for 10 classic Atari games

As reported by Deadline, the company has agreed a deal that allows Universal Pictures to make films from 10 classic franchises, which are listed below:

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

Atari

Work is already underway on the first project, which will be produced by Entertainment 360’s Guymon Casady, and written by long-time Universal executive Matt Reilly and Carl Hampe (Hellboy 2019). However, it’s unclear right now which of the 10 is being given the movie treatment first.

“Matt Reilly and I grew up playing Atari 2600 games and have remained fans ever since,” Casady told Deadline. “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.”

We’re in an era where Hollywood is looking to games for inspiration more and more. However, what’s most eye-catching about this announcement is that these titles aren’t exactly known for their story or world-building, as they’re basic arcade games.

Pong, in particular, is very simple, as it’s essentially table tennis where two stick-like paddles knock a ball back and forth. Meanwhile, Asteroids depicts a tiny 2D ship that must destroy space rocks without being hit.

This deal doesn’t necessarily mean that a movie for each one will see the light of day, but fans will no doubt be wondering how these classic games will be blown up into feature-length films.

These are hardly the only video game movies in the works either, as everything from Call of Duty to Elden Ring is getting an adaptation.