Universal has reportedly partnered with director Michael Bay and actress Sydney Sweeney to develop a film adaptation of SEGA’s 1980s-era Out Run.
According to a report from Deadline, Bay will direct the film while Sweeney has signed on to produce the movie, with Jayson Rothwell to write the script. Bay will also be a producer on the film with his partner Brad Fuller, and while there’s the chance that Sweeney could act in the film, she’s currently only on board as a producer.
When SEGA first launched Out Run in arcades in 1986, it was an instant hit and spawned several sequels both within and outside of arcades. The most recent Out Run game came to 3DS in 2014 with 3D OutRun, which makes it a little over a decade since the racer has returned in any meaningful fashion.
Popular as Out Run was for many years, Universal has gone with a bit of a deep cut here in a way that feels intentional. Out Run might not be the first thing players would think of as the next video game series that should be adapted into a movie or TV show, but that might be why it was chosen.
Universal could have made what it felt was a reasonable deal to add another video game adaptation to its portfolio, and at the same time, SEGA gets another chance to revitalize one of its older series.
Adding Michael Bay and current star Sydney Sweeney then adds some weight behind the film to hopefully make it a box-office smash, similar to how the Sonic, Super Mario Bros., and recently Minecraft movies have all been big commercial hits.
However, the key difference between Out Run and the rest of those series is that so many of the kids who drove their parents to see all those other films have at least heard of, if not played games from, those other series. The number of kids who have never heard of Out Run only grows the further away from 2014 we get.
Of course, there’s the chance that Universal’s marketing team, paired with a solid premise for the film, could whip up plenty of excitement around an adaptation of the classic racing series and make it a box-office hit. But that remains to be seen.
