One of gaming’s oldest brands, Atari, has signed a deal with Universal Pictures to develop movies based on 10 of its most recognizable classic games, including Pong, Asteroids, Centipede, and Missile Command. Atari remains one of the most recognizable companies in the history of video games, even decades after its dominance in the arcade and console space.
Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, Atari played a formative role in arcade gaming, home consoles, and personal computers. As the nascent industry figured out how to bring the arcade experience home, the Atari 2600’s iconic cartridge-based design pioneered gaming in the living room in the late 1970s. It introduced some of the era’s most classic games, like Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Adventure, and Yars’ Revenge, which are still considered some of the best Atari titles and helped establish genres and design conventions that modern developers still build upon. By today’s standards, those games are quite simple, but they could give Atari and Universal plenty of creative freedom to make some compelling films.
Atari’s Biggest Hits Are Being Developed as Movies
In an interview with Deadline, Atari chairperson and CEO Wade Rosen confirmed that the company is partnering with Universal and Entertainment 360 to create large-scale action-adventure adaptations of multiple games. The proposed adaptations include Asteroids, Adventure, Berzerk, Breakout, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Millipede, Missile Command, Pong, and Yars’ Revenge, with Universal already in possession of a screenplay written by Matt Reilly and Carl Hampe. Entertainment 360’s Guymon Casady, a former co-executive producer of Game of Thrones, is currently attached to the first project, stating that Atari’s games always provided small but evocative worlds that let players use their imagination to fill in the details. CEO Wade Rosen views the deal as a great opportunity to extend the company’s long-running games and brand to a new medium and audience.
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Some Atari games certainly have more movie potential than others, so it will be interesting to see what comes from the deal. A game like Asteroids could become a large-scale space adventure built around pilots protecting Earth or surviving a catastrophic debris field. Or Adventure could be a fantasy movie involving castles and dragons. Meanwhile, games like Pong could be used as thematic inspiration, perhaps even becoming some Marty Supreme-style drama should clever writers want to take on the strange creative challenge that would come with that project.
Where once video game movies carried a poor reputation, Atari joins a growing wave of console-to-theater adaptations that have grown increasingly attractive to Hollywood. Perhaps the most noteworthy of the bunch is the Super Mario series, with both films in the franchise grossing over $1 billion worldwide. Looking ahead, Capcom’s Street Fighter is scheduled for October 2026, while Nintendo is developing a live-action feature film of The Legend of Zelda for May 2027. Atari’s proposed 10-movie deal doesn’t necessarily mean that each game will get its own adaptation, but it certainly shows that the industry is confident its games can support ongoing film franchises.
Of course, it will take some time before these Atari movies are on the silver screen. Scripts can be rewritten, projects could change hands, and some projects may never enter production. Universal previously obtained the rights to an Asteroids film in 2009, while separate Missile Command and Centipede projects were announced years ago without reaching theaters. The current agreement certainly has stronger prospects, as a screenplay has already been written and the space for game adaptations is much healthier overall, but things are always subject to change. Atari’s simple games could seem like a challenge to adapt into movies, but that might be their biggest creative strength in the future.