The short version

  • Atari and Universal Pictures have signed a deal covering up to ten feature films based on classic Atari properties
  • The ten titles: Asteroids, Adventure, Berzerk, Breakout, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Millipede, Missile Command, Pong, and Yars’ Revenge
  • The first project is already greenlit, from a spec script co-written by Matt Reilly and Carl Hampe, with Guymon Casady producing
  • Neither company has said which of the ten that first script adapts
  • Produced in partnership with Entertainment 360
  • First theatrical release is tentatively projected for 2028
  • Reported by Deadline on July 27, 2026

Atari has signed a deal with Universal Pictures to turn as many as ten of its classic games into feature films. The list includes Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Breakout — and Pong.

The ten games

The full slate under the agreement: Asteroids, Adventure, Berzerk, Breakout, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Millipede, Missile Command, Pong, and Yars’ Revenge. Universal is producing alongside Entertainment 360, and one project is already moving — a spec script from Matt Reilly and Carl Hampe, with Guymon Casady attached to produce.

The detail neither company will confirm is which game that first script is actually based on. The earliest anything from the deal reaches theatres is currently pencilled in for 2028.

The obvious question

These games do not have stories. That’s not a snipe, it’s the literal situation: Pong is two rectangles and a dot, Breakout is a paddle and a wall, Asteroids is a triangle in a rock field. There are no characters, no dialogue, no setting, and in most cases no ending. The entire creative content of Yars’ Revenge is a shooter about an insect.

Which is why the reaction to the announcement has been closer to bafflement than excitement. What Universal has actually bought is brand recognition among people old enough to remember arcades — the film would have to invent essentially everything except the title.

There’s precedent in both directions. The Super Mario Bros. Movie and the Sonic films made real money from properties that at least had characters to work with. Battleship is the counterexample: a board game with no story that became an alien-invasion film nobody asked for a sequel to. Pong sits considerably closer to the Battleship end of that spectrum.

Why it matters

The interesting part isn’t whether a Pong movie is good. It’s that the video-game adaptation gold rush has now run far enough past the obvious candidates that studios are buying IP with no narrative content whatsoever — purely as a recognisable word on a poster.

For Atari specifically, this is the same play the company has been running for years: it doesn’t make many new games, it owns a vault of names everybody recognises, and licensing those names is the business. Ten films is an ambitious ceiling, and “up to ten” deals routinely produce one or two. But one of them is already written, which means at least one Atari movie is genuinely happening.

Sources: Deadline — Atari signs deal with Universal to turn 10 iconic games into movies, Kotaku — Atari and Universal sign movie deal for 10 video game adaptations, Engadget — Universal secures rights for film adaptations of 10 Atari games, Time Extension — Atari signs deal to turn 10 of its classic games into movies