LOS ANGELES — Hot off his work on Borderlands and the latest season of HBO’s The Last of Us, writer-director, Craig Mazin, has been tapped to pen a film adaptation of the arcade classic, Ms. Pac-Man. Mazin, who recently promised he was done with game adaptations, backtracked on that promise days later, after Bandai Namco offered him a duffle bag filled with cash to bring gaming’s first heroine to the big screen. Mazin confirmed the hiring on this week’s Scriptnotes while also discussing some of his concerns with adapting the game.
“In the game, Ms. Pac-Man eats Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Sue in rapid succession,” Mazin said before reminding everyone that he wrote Identity Thief for some reason. “For a movie, this would be near impossible from a character standpoint. Blinky, who we recently cast Jason Momoa to play, is 6’4”. There’s no physical way Ms. Pac-Man could take him down, along with the other ghosts back-to-back, especially after eating all the food and pellets on the board.”
Pondering over the source material, Mazin continued to list off changes he would need to consider while working on the adaptation.
“The ghosts are set up as the bad guys, but when Ms. Pac-Man eats the power pellet, they run in fear,” Mazin said before breaking into a semi-related anecdote to namedrop a famous friend. “I want to explore that dynamic. Everyone’s a hero in their own story. I want to follow Blinky and see why they’re so afraid of Ms. Pac-Man and why the power pellet makes them edible.”
There has not been much backlash to the announcement, since most gamers who were around for the original release of Ms. Pac-Man in 1982 have died. But gamers will be gamers, and a vocal minority has taken to various corners of the web to complain about the upcoming adaptation.
“Mazin is totally going to ruin this. I’ll still watch it, but I’m not going to enjoy it,” wrote Twitter user @PAC4LYFE.
“I’m easy to please, and this news does not please me,” wrote @EatMyAssMsPacMan.
“Honestly, he could make the greatest movie ever and I’d still find a way to be mad,” said @JustAnHonestJerk.
At press time Mazin speculated that he may need an additional film to do Ms. Pac-Man justice.
