With a slew of upcoming films based on video games, there are a lot of properties that haven't been given an opportunity to thrive on the big screen. When talking about video games that should be shows or movies, the same few answers keep popping up: Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect, and Final Fantasy all come to mind. It makes sense, right? All these properties at the very least have some cinematic qualities or are malleable enough to turn into a feature film. The recent decision to give Pac-Man a feature film, however, has us scratching our heads.
Yes, Pac-Man — the beloved '80s arcade classic, a blue maze full of floating orbs and fervent ghosts — is getting a feature film. A live-action feature film, no less. Admittedly, you could make a film about anything and make it entertaining. But even with the involvement of the man behind Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog films, Chuck Williams, there's just one question we have to ask: what could a Pac-Man movie be about?
Surprisingly, Pac-Man Has Lore
Most people associate Pac-Man as a character from his first outing in 1980. It's hard to forget how much of an impact it left on many impressionable kids. The memorable "wakka wakka wakka" sound, the colorful ghosts, and the escalating difficulty that drives people to pump more and more quarters into the machine all makes for an arcade staple. Conversely, there's practically nothing here to adapt into a 90-minute feature. In an effort to keep the Pac-Man brand alive as games evolved, however, Bandai Namco took more than a few chances at giving the character some more depth.
Beyond giving him a partner in the form of Ms. Pac-Man, a whole Pac-Family came about in the Pac-Man World series. Jr. Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man, and Professor Pac-Man are now established members of Pac-Man's family and friends. As the game revolved around their kidnappings — and Pac-Man's attempts to rescue them — it painted the spherical character as a brave hero, seemingly unfazed by the turmoil the situation should've brought on. The ending of the game even gives him some comedic obliviousness or mercilessness, depending on how you view him mindlessly eating a ghost that had officially surrendered.
Originally meant to celebrate Pac-Man's 20th anniversary, the game left Pac-Man as a cartoonish mute due to disagreements over what he ought to sound like. He would eventually become a wise-cracking snark in Pac-Man World 3, but it wouldn't be out of the question to see him keep his original silent personification. We've seen silent protagonists work in other successful properties, like Pixar's WALL-E or Wallace and Gromit. Pac-Man could pull it off if the rest of the cast pulled their own slack.
Several Pac-Man Shows Exist
Pac-Man is no stranger to the world of television, even. Beyond a basic tie-in series produced by Hanna-Babera throughout the early '80s, Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures both expanded the world of Pac-Man while assigning personalities to a variety of formerly-mute characters. Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures premiered in 2013 and was ultimately canceled in 2015, likely due to a lack of interest.
To briefly summarize the series, Pac-Man and his friends Cylindria and Spiralton are tasked with defending the planet Pac-World from the threat of invasive ghosts from the Netherworld. It's a dramatic change-up, to say the least. Pac-Man, or "Pac," is given more of an emotional side. He feels guilty due to his involvement in bringing the ghosts to Pac-World, he's immature due to his troubled home life, and his sense of humor has been cranked up ten-fold.
While it's less than likely that this incarnation of Pac-Man will serve as a basis for the upcoming live-action film, the fact that it wasn't immediately wiped off the face of the Earth shows that giving Pac-Man depth can be moderately successful. The series even lasted for two full-length seasons, totaling 52 episodes. Even if the series wasn't positively received, it's still a commendable number of episodes.
What Could a Pac-Man Movie Be About?
So, while a live-action Pac-Man movie may not directly take from its expanded source material, these examples have at least shown that Pac-Man can be morphed into something a little more story-driven with some elbow grease and creativity. With the mind behind Sonic the Hedgehog producing the film, it's possible we can already predict what the upcoming Pac-Man movie may be about.
Being a live-action film, we can likely rule out anything involving Pac-Man's Ghostly Adventures incarnation. With how simple his original design is, we can expect Pac-Man's most popular depiction from Pac-Man World to take center stage, complete with his orange mitts and cartoonish boots. Similar to the Sonic movies, he'll likely cross over from his dimension — whatever they'll call it this time — into ours, retaining his cartoonish proportions while also introducing his fleet of colorful antagonists into our world.
Then again, several fan-made adaptations of Pac-Man have taken their own creative liberties in depicting the titular character. A common idea is that Pac-Man is actually some kind of human soldier or hunter of ghosts, using the pellets as a means to ward off their influence. It's complete with a yellow set of armor that makes up his figure, with his "chomping mouth" being depicted as a helmet's visor. Mind you, this setup is typically played for laughs. But, we're talking about a live-action Pac-Man movie here. Frankly, anything can happen.
Sometimes, we make fun of things that may not necessarily "work" as movies. It's easy to forget that many predicted Sonic the Hedgehog to be a complete disaster based on its early promotional material, or that we'd never see a Super Mario Bros. movie again after 1993. Overall, we're just curious to see how one would even attempt to bring Pac-Man to the big screen, let alone successfully.