Is Avi Arad developing a Pac-Man movie?

Producer Avi Arad, once the head of Marvel Studios, will be making an appearance at the E3 conference this July with Namco, the company celebrating the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man. While the game company will be announcing new console, arcade and mobile versions of the classic game, Arad will be on hand to announce a “mystery” project related to the franchise. Since Arad is a movie producer, it doesn’t take a detective to figure out that they’re going to be developing a PAC-MAN movie.

How exactly would one make a movie about a circular yellow creature chomping pellets and chasing ghosts? Well I suppose the simplest choice would be to develop a 3D animated film with Sony Pictures Animation or something like that. Basically an update of the old Saturday Morning “Pac-Man” cartoon but using modern CG animation. But I think we all know that’s not going to happen.

The current trend is to take properties like this one that are built for animation (UNDERDOG, ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS, THE SMURFS, etc…) and convert them to live-action projects and that’s exactly what I expect them to do here. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they make Pac-Man a human being. While that sounds a little silly on the surface, it was actually done surprisingly well in this fan-created short, so it’s certainly possible they’ve cracked some kind of concept for a live-action film.

I don’t know what they’re up to but I call dibs on playing Blinky in the movie…