# Universal makes deal to make 10 Atari 2600 movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 23, 2026, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885 "2026-07-23T23:07:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2026, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/21 "2026-07-24T17:18:43Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > They tried that, and it was fucking terrible. I forgot about that one. I doubt an Atari movie would gross $245M, but I bet the licenses were much cheaper. ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2026, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/22 "2026-07-24T17:29:53Z")
The Futurama bit with arcade games was good: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/YbSRDvZNQt8/maxresdefault.jpg "FUTURAMA | Season 4, Episode 3: Video War Game | SYFY") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbSRDvZNQt8) Brian ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2026, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/23 "2026-07-24T17:42:13Z")
I’m still wrapping my head around how you could make a film about Pong. What do you have to work with? Two bars and one dot. But maybe they can even expand it to the sequel Pong 2, now with four bars and one dot. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2026, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/24 "2026-07-24T17:48:59Z")
Make it a cliffhanger sequel from Breakout: Just as Our Hero finishes destroying the last of the blocks and is about to enjoy a well-earned rest, suddenly a second paddle appears from space. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2026, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/25 "2026-07-25T03:04:46Z")
Universal optioned the rights to 10 games, but they are not announcing plans for 10 Atari movies. Or am I misreading the article? ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2026, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/26 "2026-07-25T04:01:20Z")
That seems to be correct: Universal bought one script from Entertainment ~~720~~ 360 and Atari while optioning the IP to 10 games. Universal has not commented on the deal yet. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2026, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/27 "2026-07-25T04:20:27Z")
Has anyone ever made an Empire Strikes Back movie? Because I spent a lot of time on that game… it’s about time someone brought it to the big screen. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2026, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/28 "2026-07-25T05:40:49Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I’m still wrapping my head around how you could make a film about Pong. What do you have to work with? Two bars and one dot. Make it a horror movie where if you don’t keep the dot bouncing around, something terrible happens. The game is keeping the doors shut on a prison full of monsters or something but it breaks in some way and someone has to sit there and play it manually to prevent disaster. This of course fails miserably and monsters wreak havoc. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2026, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/29 "2026-07-25T08:30:39Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I’m still wrapping my head around how you could make a film about Pong. What do you have to work with? _Marty Supreme_ has pretty good Rotten Tomatoes. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2026, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/30 "2026-07-25T08:34:22Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I’m still wrapping my head around how you could make a film about Pong. What do you have to work with? Clearly you make it a sports movie about a Table Tennis champion. If Kevin Costner can make endless movies about baseball, surely there is a way to port that concept over to other less familiar sports too. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2026, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/31 "2026-07-25T13:21:06Z")
> [@CaveMike](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > They have both Centipede and Millipede, but no Pitfall? > > Pitfall was an Activision game so it’s owned by Microsoft as part of Activision Blizzard. Right. Pitfall was a game _for_ the Atari, but not a game _by_ Atari. There have been good movies made from unlikely source material before (_The Lego Movie_, _Clue_), but there have also been plenty of bad ones. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2026, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/32 "2026-07-26T04:28:33Z")
nevermind ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2026, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/33 "2026-07-27T05:18:32Z")
I think _Berzerk_ could be turned into a legitimately cool movie. My assumption, of course, is that they’ll screw it up, as they would any movie made from a game on the list. But I saw _Berzerk_ there and couldn’t help but imagine a dark, sleek, claustrophobic action flick. Ryan Gosling could be our heroic protagonist, and Evil Otto would be played by … hmm, Michael Fassbender, maybe? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2026, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/34 "2026-07-27T08:19:43Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I’m still wrapping my head around how you could make a film about Pong. What do you have to work with? Two bars and one dot. But maybe they can even expand it to the sequel Pong 2, now with four bars and one dot. Hey, they made a film based on _Rampage_, a game in which the entirety of the action is “punch buildings, eat people”. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2026, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/35 "2026-07-27T10:31:11Z")
> [@CaveMike](#): > > Oh, and if Adventure ever makes it to the big screen and there isn’t a plot point about the “invisible dot” I will pen a strongly worded letter to somebody. It’s been done - the invisible dot was a key plot point in Stephen Spielberg’s _Ready Player One_. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2026, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/36 "2026-07-27T10:54:55Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I’m still wrapping my head around how you could make a film about Pong. The same way you make a [story about Ping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_About_Ping). ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2026, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/37 "2026-08-19T02:26:57Z")
Another huge piece of shit. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2026, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/38 "2026-08-19T21:30:39Z")
For a moment I thought you were saying that Rampage was a piece of shit. That movie was very firmly in the “so corny and over the top it’s good” category. Ready Player One, I couldn’t tell you. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2026, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/39 "2026-08-19T21:48:02Z")
Not going to lie, I’d watch a Yar’s Revenge movie. I had the copy of the game that came with a cassette tape explaining the game’s backstory. I remember pretty much nothing about that back story, except I loved the fuck out of it when I was seven. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2026, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885/40 "2026-08-19T22:04:08Z")
Well, there was Yar, who wanted revenge. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-makes-deal-to-make-10-atari-2600-movies/1031885.md?page=3)