Pac-Man (2022)



Pac-Man is a 2022 American Computer animated Comedy film based on the popular arcade game of the same name created by Bandai Namco. The film is distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, and produced by Sony Pictures Animation, Columbia Pictures, and Bandai Namco Studios, it is directed by Travis Knight and written by Genndy Tartakovsky. The film features the voices of Jesse Eisenberg, Elizabeth Banks, Nancy Cartwright, Ian McShane, JK Simmons, Sebastian Maniscalco, Seth Rogen, Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader and Keegan Micheal Key. The Film follows Pac-Man, a resident of Pactropolis who is a retired Ghost Hunter and now works as a Programmer, in a Race Against Time along with his family and Grandfather, to stop the Ghost army from taking over the world.

Pac-Man was released on September 16th, 2022 for both United States and Canada and received generally favourable reviews for its animation, writing and voice acting. It has grossed $430 million worldwide, making it the second highest-grossing animated film of 2022. A sequel is also in the works.

Plot
In Pactropolis, Pac-Man was from a long line of Ghost Hunters (who eats the ghosts instead of capturing them) until he married Ms Pac-Man, deciding to stop the Ghosts once and for all, banishing them to the Underworld through the use of the Power Pellets.

A few years later, Pac-Man is a retired ghost hunter whom everyone has forgotten, Pac-Man has lived a wonderful life with his wife Ms. Pac-Man, his son Pac-Jr and his baby daughter Pac-Girl along with a Dog and Cat, Although he loves his family, Pac-Man resents the mundanity of his suburban lifestyle and job as Game Developer at Namco and wants to relive the glory days as a Ghost-Hunter, moonlighting as a vigilante with his friends Dig-Dug and Mappy, going out to save people from a few Ghosts who have espaced from the Underworld.

When Pac-Man is fired from his job after forgetting to go program important aspects of the next game they developed leading it to be a critical and commercial flop, a mysterious figure tells him that he can fulfil his wish of reliving his Glory days, he makes a deal with the mysterious figure.

The figure is revealed to be Pac-Devil, who works for Spooky the Ghost, one of the first Ghosts who Pac-Man had defeated, Pac-Devil then persuades Pac-Man to opening the Door to the Underworld, which unleashes all the Ghosts to Pactropolis. Realising his mistake Pac Man quickly goes to his family and tells them to get out of the city.

Production
The film was announced in 2017 by Universal Studios, and was originally supposed to be a live-action/CGI film set in a video game world, and the film would be slated for a 2021 release. But as of June 2019, Sony Pictures acquired the rights to the film and they, along with Bandai Namco, decided to make it into a fully CGI animated film under their Sony Pictures Animation studio, and is now slated for a fall 2022 release. This caused many people who worked on the Universal film to be fired and re-casted for the animated film. Bandai Namco said that production began on October of 2020 and ended production in August of 2021.

Casting
Sony has confirmed that Travis Knight (director of Bumblebee and Kubo and the Two Strings) will be directing the film, and Toru Iwatani (the creator of Pac-Man) will be both producer and executive producer for the upcoming film. Jesse Eisenberg will provide the voice for Pac-Man himself, while Ian McShane will voice the main villain of the movie, Spooky. Also Elizabeth Banks will lend her voice as Ms. Pac-Man (Pac-Man's lovely wife) and Dee Bradly Baker has been cast as the ghost minions of Spooky.

Theatrical
The film has been released theatrically on September 16th, 2022. It was originally supposed to come out in July 22, but due to some minor production issues and the COVID-19 pandemic, it was pushed back to September.

Home media
In April 2021, Sony signed deals with Netflix and The Walt Disney Company for the streaming rights to their 2022 to 2026 film slate, including Pac-Man, following the films' theatrical and home media windows.

The film was released for VOD on November 15, 2022, and Blu-ray, DVD and 4K UHD on December 6, 2022.

Critically
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 67%, with an average rating of 7.4/10, based on 245 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "It's not as fun as the arcade game that inspired it, but if you enjoy the source material or the recent streak of video game adaptations, Pac-Man is right up your alley."

Box Office
Pac-Man grossed $151 million in the United States and in Canada, and $279 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $430 million. Making it the second highest-grossing animated film of 2022, and the third highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time, behind Warcraft and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu.

Trivia

 * This will be Sony Pictures Animation's second video game adaptation (the first one being The Angry Birds Movie 2)
 * This is the third film that Travis Knight has directed, and the second animated film he directed as well.
 * This is the fifth animated video game movie. (With the upcoming Super Mario Bros. film by Illumination being the sixth)