Michael Bay is making an ‘OutRun’ movie with Sydney Sweeney

Prepare thine eyes, ears and brain for exploding Generic Red Italian Supercars that definitely aren’t Ferrari Testarossas. Probably. Michael Bay – a man who has enjoyed a fine career spectacularly detonating everything in sight – is making a movie about OutRun.

The videogame OutRun, just so we’re clear. A game that famously had very little narrative, character development or even an overall story. It was just… a Generic Red Italian Supercar driving down an American freeway against the clock, set to an infectious soundtrack.

Perfect Bay territory, then. According to Deadline, he’ll direct the film, from a script written by a chap called Jayson Rothwell, with The White Lotus star Sydney Sweeney on board as a producer.

There’s no word on what the film’s story will be about, but it’s ripe for a big-screen adaption. Unleashed onto an unsuspecting world back in 1986, the videogame quickly became a huge hit, both commercially – it was the highest-grossing arcade game of 1987 in the world - and critically.

Chiefly because the way it rendered the Generic Red Italian Supercar’s speed was unprecedented for the time. The scenery changed as you progressed through the stages. The arcade box had a gearshift. You had to hang onto the steering wheel through its – for the time – breakneck cornering. All the while listening to Hiroshi Kawaguchi’s brilliantly Eighties score.

No word on a timeline, but this ought to be good. More as we get it…