Atari Signs 10-Movie Deal With Universal, But Most May Never Get Made

Atari announced a 10-movie deal with Universal Pictures at San Diego Comic-Con, partnering with Entertainment 360 to give Universal the option to develop 10 classic Atari games into films. The announcement comes as Hollywood continues its aggressive push to adapt video game IP for the big screen.

The deal covers ten Atari properties: Asteroids, Adventure, Berzerk, Breakout, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Millipede, Missile Command, Pong, and Yars' Revenge. Universal has already moved on the first project, purchasing an original spec script and hiring writer-producer Matt Reilly — a former Universal executive turned screenwriter — alongside producer Carl Hampe, who previously worked on Hellboy (2019) and Jungle Cruise. The specific game being adapted hasn't been revealed. Atari CEO and chairman Wade Rosen called it an opportunity to bring "the spirit of our iconic brand and games to a new medium," though the studio was careful to frame this as an option deal, not a greenlight for all ten films.

Option deals like this are standard Hollywood practice — studios pay for the right to develop projects without committing to actually make them. With 50-plus video game movies currently in various stages of production across the industry, competition for audience attention is real, and most development deals quietly expire without a single film getting made. Atari's catalog is genuinely iconic, but translating arcade-era games with minimal narrative into compelling feature films is a creative challenge that's tripped up bigger IP before.

For now, only one project is actively moving forward, and its identity remains under wraps. In the broader video game movie pipeline, Zach Cregger's Resident Evil film is due in September, with Street Fighter following in October — so audiences will get a sense of the market's appetite for game adaptations before any Atari project gets close to a screen.