Pac-Man is turning 30 this summer, which means the little yellow guy with an appetite for fruit and a fear of ghosts is finally old enough that his marriage to Mrs. Pac-Man doesn't seem a little premature. And how better to celebrate this new milestone than another bid for stardom? Slashfilm has noticed that everpresent producer and former Marvel Studios head Avi Arad will be at Namco's 30th birthday party for Pac-Man this summer, and will "make an announcement about the worldwide premiere of his newest Pac-Man project.” It doesn't have to be a movie he's on board to talk about, but Arad is a guy who has claimed that Hollywood will do for video games what it did for superhero movies. You can figure he wants to be the guy to make that happen.
Any number of plotless video game and toy properties are being developed into movies right now, from the View-Finder movie to Stretch Armstrong, but Pac-Man would really take it to new level. It's a video game with no story and no humanoid characters, just a blob who looks like a cheese wheel and some other blobs who are supposed to be ghosts. I love Pac-Man as much as the next child of the 80s, but I feel bummed just imagining the inevitable directions they'll try and take this. Anyone out there care to talk me down?
