Universal is planning to adapt Sega’s racing game series OutRun into a feature film directed by Michael Bay and produced by Sydney Sweeney and Sega executive Toru Nakahara, sources tell Deadline. Jayson Rothwell (Silent Night, Polar) is writing the script, the report adds, and the whole shebang is being overseen by Sega president Shuji Utsumi.
The original OutRun debuted in arcades in 1986 before getting ports for Sega home consoles like the Master System, Genesis, and Saturn as well a variety of PCs. Its claim to fame was a system that allowed players to choose different routes during a race, concluding in multiple endings. OutRun got several sequels throughout the 1990s before development on the series slowed. The most recent entry was OutRun Online Arcade, developed by Sumo Digital and released in 2009.
Universal has been involved in turning popular video games into movies for decades. The studio got its start with Street Fighter, an infamous flop, before trying its hand with Doom, which starred Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and included a lengthy first-person sequence based on the source material’s gameplay. Since then, the production studio has seen slightly more success with properties like WarCraft, Five Night’s at Freddy’s, and Super Mario Bros., with future plans to adapt Just Cause, Ruiner, and Shinobi.
As for what the OutRun movie could be about, it’s hard to say. The series is pretty slick and focused on pairing chill arcade racing with excellent soundtracks, so it’s likely a hypothetical film adaptation would be more Baby Driver than The Fast and the Furious. All that said, it feels like video game movies always have a lot of baggage to overcome just to achieve something halfway decent, so we’ll keep our eyes on this one with tempered expectations.
