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Actor Sydney Sweeney and director Michael Bay will be collaborating with Universal Pictures in an adaptation of Saga’s OutRun video game for a live action film. Bay will be directing as well as producing the film, while Sweeney is signing on as a producer only at this point. Jayson Rothwell will be writing the script. No further details about the plot or casting have yet been announced.

The deal is being made together with Brad Fuller under his and Bay’s production banner known as Platinum Dunes. Also producing will be Sega’s Toru Nakahara and president Shuji Utsumi. Nakahara had been involved in the adaptations of games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Knuckles, and Golden Axe.

The OutRun game debuted in 1986 and by the following year became the world’s highest-grossing video game. The game, a so-called “traffic game” in which players race against the clock while behind the steering wheel, was designed by Yu Suzuki. After its commercial success, several sequels were released, including Turbo OutRun in 1989, OutRunners in 1992, and OutRun2 in 2003, among others.

 

Universal hopes to cash in on recent blockbuster adaptations of video games by other studios, including A Minecraft Movie and The Last of Us. Universal’s own The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Five Nights at Freddy’s grossed $1.4 billion and $290 million, respectively, in global box office receipts.

Sydney Sweeney is no stranger to behind-the-scenes work, having produced (and starred in) the Immaculate horror film for Neon as well as the Christy Martin biopic. In June, she will appear opposite Julianne Moore in Apple TV+’s Echo Valley. She rose to  prominence after appearing in two HBO series, Euphoria and The White Lotus, which earned her two Primetime Emmy Awards. 

Platinum Dunes recent produced A Quiet Place: Day One as well as Drop, in tandem with Blumhouse. Scriptwriter Rothwell is credited with penning the screenplays for Polar and Arachnid.

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