Translating video games into movies or television has had a pretty checkered history. For a long time, it seemed that any video-game-to-movie was doomed to failure, as movies like Mortal Kombat and Tekken and the recent Borderlands have all been kind of, well, crap. But then there are series like The Last of Us and movies like Ari Aster’s powerful and deeply disturbing psychosexual drama based on Q*Bert that force me to reconsider this idea. Now there’s a new video-game-to-movie happening, and it’s based on one of the true icons of driving games: OutRun.
Yes, OutRun! Sega’s 1986 masterpiece about driving a Ferrari Testarossa convertible (which were never officially built by Ferrari; only a tiny number of conversions actually exist) with a blonde passenger to one of five goals, all while avoiding hitting what looks like a ’72 Beetle, a Porsche 911, an E30 BMW convertible, a ’70s Corvette, and a big rig truck.
That was pretty much the entire plot of the game, as you can see here:
Is this enough material for director Michael Bay to sink his teeth into, and really find the motivations and goals and emotional demons of the brown-haired driver and his blonde passenger? Is he going to use the course map as the basis for the movie’s plot? He should, because look at it:
Nuanced, that’s what that is! I hope Bay can do it justice. Are there enough explosions for Bay, though? That’s the real question.
Sydney Sweeney is also attached to the project, but not as The Passenger, as one may assume due to nothing more than hair color, but as a producer. No mention of casting has been announced as yet, but if I had to make an educated, rational guess, I’d say that we’re likely to see Nathan Lane as the driver and Grace Jones as the passenger, or perhaps Tilda Swinton in both roles. But who knows, maybe they’ll try something weird?
The overall plot, of course, isn’t known yet, but perhaps we can find some clues in the five possible endings of the game (spoiler alert?):
There’s a genie involved in one? And in one version, the passenger gets the trophy? I forgot this game had such depth!
OutRun is one of the jewels in the Sega crown and was groundbreaking at the time. Designer/programmer Yu Suzuki was inspired by the 1981 Cannonball Run movie that introduced the world to Captain Chaos:
I don’t think Captain Chaos has anything to do with OutRun, really, but I’m not going to lose an opportunity to provide you with some chaos of the captain variety.
Suzuki described the game as a driving game instead of a racing game, which I think is a telling distinction, and also explains choices like how you can pick driving music before the game. It’s more about the joy of driving than the thrill of racing, and I think that’s a big reason for the game’s huge success.
The hardware used for the original arcade version of OutRun was revolutionary for the era as well; the machine used two Motorola 68000s for CPUs (that’s the CPU used in the first Macintoshes and the Amiga and Atari ST computers), and the video board had six special processors. While not a true 3D display, OutRun did compute three-dimensional positions and used scaled sprites to render the images.
Will an OutRun movie be any good? Will the movie capture all of the subtle interplay of the various passions that guide the human experience like the video game did? Maybe. What I do know is that the best adaptation of OutRun as a property has already happened, thanks to this project from my friend Garnet Hertz:
That’s pretty damn cool.
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In answer to the question, “why would you click that?” I have to respond; in what universe would I not click that? I had to know how anyone would use Q-Bert for that or anything else!
Damn shame John Frankenheimer has passed. He could make a version that wouldn’t suck.
As for plot, all I can say is I hope Mikey Bay has seen Vanishing Point.
Even though I played it a lot at Elementary school skate parties I forgot this game existed. Even after seeing the movie news the game I pictured in my head was Cruisin’ USA.
In my head it was Pole Position. My memory is weirdly unreliable
The soundtrack has already been recorded – I routinely have this in my playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz1LFKDMIk8
Because I remember like a College Humor sketch, or something from fifteen years ago, to that effect. That’s why, Torch.
The first thing I thought when I saw this was please let ratarossa’s testarossa make an appearance.
Roberto Benigni is rumored to be attached to the project, playing the role of the Ferrari Testarossa.
Isn’t the video game just like Fast n Furious without family?
Hey, I paid sixty bucks yesterday to take my kids to the Minecraft movie.
How about “Pong” the Movie.
No need for a 3D version.
That’s pretty much what I came here to contribute.
Maybe borrow the plot from “it’s a mad mad mad mad world “
If there’s any video game of that era which needs to be made into a movie, it’s not Outrun. What we really need a video game adaptation of these days is River City Ransom. That’s a hill I’m willing to die on. Outrun was good, perhaps even great, but RCR just hit so different back then.
I could actually see a Chase HQ movie. I loved that stupid game, crashing into the bad guy’s car until it broke down.
Moving a few years forward, I would definitely go see a Syndicate movie.
I wanna see someone try to make a movie out of NFS Rivals. The story was simple, but it got kinda deep in the officers story line.
There were 2 storylines, one from the racers POV, and one from the police’s POV, and you could freely switch between the 2. So it would be interesting if they switched POV’s during the movie.
I’ve seen a comment elsewhere that they might be trying to leverage the look of the game as an excuse to make something which looks like this.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61K4I8K8eHL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg
On a similar note, enjoy this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xxe9C1gzHE
I also had the thought that the focus could be more on Outrun the aesthetic than Outrun the game.
Trying to turn a 40 year old arcade game into a movie says more about Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy than the greatness of Outrun. This falls into the same pit as the countless live action remakes and franchise reboots that are a weak substitute for actually doing something original.
I love that you think there’s going to be a plot, ot that it would be important. That’s adorable.
I would happily pay to watch 2 hours of Michael Bay directed car mayhem, no matter if there was a plot or not, because plot is incidental in a Bay film. Just watch Ambulance-it takes a fairly serious premise and treats in an absurdly silly manner, it has all the juvenile Bay ‘humour’, dumb side characters etc, and none of it matters because the action direction is supurb. The guy makes terrible films (except The Rock of course), but he comunicates visually in a way no one else is capable of doing. He could make Nascar interesting.
Does Michael Bay make movies with plots? Maybe it’s optional.
Maybe it’s Bay-belline
I fucking LOVED Outrun, and got good enough to have made it to all five endpoints.
For the music alone I would watch this, but I’m expecting it to be terrible. Which means if just the car is cool it will exceed expectations.
Nathan Lane and Grace Jones? I would actually pay the movie theatre extortion to see that.
Grace Jones, of course, would be driving and Nathan Lane would be wearing the blond wig.
Perfection!
I hope you’re not saying the original Mortal Kombat movie was crap. It was a fine mindless beat-em-up movie based on a mindless beat-em-up game. Plus, Christopher Lambert gleefully chewing the scenery as Raiden. I haven’t seen the more recent adaptations, so no judgement on those.
There can be only one!
It was crap,
but it was the kind of crap that I thoroughly enjoyed watching in theaters.
Okay, here’s my stupid idea to make this work:
The “Outrun” is an illegal Cross-country race ala the Cannonball or Gumball. However, it’s setup by a group of extremely rich and bored billionaires. They find 20-30 people from around the country who are great drivers, but have problems. Financial or Legal. They offer them a chance to make all their problems vanish if they win the race.
The race is from New York City to a private airport in the Los Angeles area. Waiting at the finish line is a private jet, with pilots ready to fly to anywhere, with $100 Million in cash sitting inside. Whoever gets there first, gets the plane and everything inside.
The organizers, of course, monitor the entire race and every car with everything from spotters, to drones, to satellites. For fun, they mess with the racers by setting up traps, calling ahead to police, and other obstacles.
Don’t ask me about the characters. I have no idea, and would just come up with a bunch of cliches. But, you definitely need a great cast of vehicles to use. Everything from classic sports cars to modern exotics. Sleepers and wild custom jobs, and everything in between.
Tagline would be something like:
“Outrun the law. Outrun the opposition. Outrun your life.”
Today we learned that Michael Bay is secretly an Autopian…
Wasn’t this Need for Speed? I didn’t see that one (love the games) but it sounds familiar.
That movie idea is basically the story of NFS The Run (The XBOX and PS versions anyway). So yes, yes it was.
Change it up a little more and make it a cross country FSD scavenger hunt using cybertrucks. Can you survive the ordeal? Starring Musky as himself with his loyal sidekicks Jeff and Marky Mark. Shotgunning are MTG and Lauren B. Will they, the Trucks and the pedestrians survive? Hit Boston, NYC, Philly, Chicago, Dallas, KC, Denver, Seattle, SF and LA.
Or take a buddy movie/rom-com approach…keep the hired gun idea and make the passenger(s) the billionaire(s). Together they find adventure, they find love, they find themselves in the great American expanse. I could see them doing something that stupid.
Wasn’t this the plot of “Rat Race” starring Travelils (not pictured)?
You just described “The Gumball Rally”.
https://youtu.be/tKF390MNM7k?feature=shared
This is Drive, starring Nathan Fillion, cancelled after 4 episodes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_(2007_TV_series)
I already know I’m going to watch it.
I don’t need to see a single trailer, or any plot descriptions. I’m guaranteed to watch it.
This is like Fast & Furious or Snakes on a Plane. You sold me with the title and I’m ready.
And Micheal Bay gives me hope that it may actually be good.
At least Ms. Sweeney is a gear head. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/sydney-sweeney-1969-ford-bronco-restored-herself
Seems like a flimsy pretense to make a car chase movie. Given its a Bay production, so long as you don’t expect more than that…should be fun!
No Testarossa, no go.
Elevator pitch: Instead of a Testarossa convertible, we pivot to a 456GT. Four seats. Four personalities. Rapidfire dialog like some unholy mashup of Tarantino and Wes Anderson, all sprinkled with Judd Apatow magic. But here’s the conceit: We run four consecutive versions of the plot in order, like Run Lola Run or Sliding Doors. First we get Sydney Sweeney’s take, that part is only about 5 minutes and mostly for the trailer. So then it’s….get this….Daniel Craig, Nick Cage, and Guy Pierce in a weird, Lolita-adjacent love quadrilateral, but they all secretly have to deliver each other to the finish line for a bounty, but none of them knows about the other ones’ plans, even though the boss is…THE SAME GUY. The ultimate Mexican standoff. Can we still say “Mexican standoff”?
Guy Ritchie is attached to direct, with Michael Bay optioned if Guy can’t do it.
I’d actually pay to watch this… sounds a bit like “4 Rooms” but on the road. Cage is …Cage and unpredicatable.
Oh, Tim Roth will definitely have a large cameo if we can get him.
Also, think “Hot Car Time Machine” (spoiler alert!)
This also sounds like “The Hateful Eight”, I dig the Tarantino vibe.
Cage dailies a 412 (according to his autobiographical movie)!
Well done – I hope it is so.
Yeah, a convertible means they’d either be shouting or it’d be full ADR. But YOU try getting four A-listers to squeeze into a 2+2!
(1994’s Only You put Tomei and RDJ in the backseat of a Mondial 3.2 but they had the front seats all the way forward; Bonnie Hunt and Joaqim de Almeida didn’t have quite as much juice as Sweeney and any one of the dudes on your list.)
Oh man, that is MY childhood. “Outrun” was always the go to game at Chuck-E-Cheese, and I recently played a console version a couple months ago. Did no better than I did at 10 LOL. Dad bought us an Atari 520 ST in 1988? and it was revolutionary for the time. Full GUI and advanced graphics capability. Spent hours playing the original “Test Drive” on it. Very high end computer for the time.
You know damn well why I clicked that.
was about to post the exact same thing.
One of the many, MANY reasons I love this site!
I don’t know if this site is the best site on the internet (it probably is), but clearly the people here are having more fun than anybody else.
SAME!
Jason doesn’t watch the web statistics, but I hope that link gets more clicks than anything else on the site today, just to see David shake his head in futility.