Inspired by Patrick Jean's short film Pixels, Adam Sandler and Tim Herlihy developed a script that eventually incorporated Kevin James as the U.S. President.

Chris Columbus joined as director in 2013, drawn to the story's nostalgic homage to 1980s arcade games like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Space Invaders, which were licensed for the film.

Post-production, led by Digital Domain and Sony Pictures Imageworks, focused on creating voxelized 3D versions of arcade characters to integrate into live-action scenes.

Innovations like CRT-inspired visual effects, voxel-based character modeling, and light-emitting animations brought iconic games to life, with standout sequences such as a Pac-Man chase and Donkey Kong barrel scenes.

Participating in a video game championship, he seemingly loses in a Donkey Kong match against obnoxious arcade player Eddie "The Fireblaster" Plant.

Brenner and Ludlow tell Will of coordinated aimed at North India, but Will dismisses their concerns, and the aliens attack the Taj Mahal as Arkanoid; Earth loses the second match.

Will and Ludlow encourage a reluctant Brenner to recruit Eddie, who is freed from prison to assist in New York City, where the team and Tōru Iwatani fight in Mini Coopers as ghosts against a giant Pac-Man.

Brenner and Violet start a romantic relationship while Eddie, as he requested, meets Serena Williams and Martha Stewart in the Lincoln Bedroom.

The script affected Columbus, who considered it "one of the most original ideas I had seen since the Amblin days" and a good opportunity to harken back to the 1980s comedies he worked on.

[17] There were originally plans to include a scene where the Great Wall of China is attacked, but the concept was removed from the script in hopes of improving the film's chances in the Chinese market.

[19] On February 26, 2014, it was announced that Sandler would play the lead role in the film, while James and Josh Gad were in early talks to join the cast.

[24] The part of "Lady Lisa", the glamorous protagonist of the fictional arcade game Dojo Quest, was offered to Elisha Cuthbert, but she turned down the role,[25] which went to Ashley Benson.

[30] Given sequences such as the Pac-Man chase happened at night, often the filmmakers would close the streets off from traffic at 7 PM and redecorate them to resemble New York until it was dark enough, filming over-night.

[35] Most visual effects were handled by Digital Domain and Sony Pictures Imageworks, with nine other VFX companies playing supporting roles, all under the leadership of supervisor Matthew Butler and producer Denise Davis.

Early tests began in October 2013, with most effects work starting after principal photography wrapped in September 2014 and finishing by June 2015.

[38] The animation team developed voxelized 3D versions of classic arcade characters, including Donkey Kong, Centipede, and Pac-Man, to integrate them into live-action settings.

The voxelization process involved using boxes that changed per frame to mimic the pixel-based graphics,[39] and was particularly challenging for characters with complex movements, such as Donkey Kong.

[41] In June 2015, Waka Flocka Flame released a single entitled "Game On", featuring Good Charlotte, which serves as part of the film's soundtrack.

[42] Prominent contributions to the soundtrack include Cheap Trick's "Surrender" and a rendition of Queen's "We Will Rock You" remixed by Helmut VonLichten, the latter of which is featured during the Donkey Kong scenes.

[56] Columbia Pictures hired Entura International to send Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices to websites hosting user-uploaded videos of the film.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Much like the worst arcade games from the era that inspired it, Pixels has little replay value and is hardly worth a quarter.

[69] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film one star out of four, calling it "a 3D metaphor for Hollywood's digital assault on our eyes and brains" and deeming it "relentless and exhausting".

[73] In Salon.com, Andrew O'Hehir called the film "another lazy Adam Sandler exercise in 80s Nostalgia", as well as "an overwhelmingly sad experience" characterized by "soul-sucking emptiness".

[74] Nigel Smith of The Guardian called it "casually sexist, awkwardly structured, bro-centric" and warned, "Pity the poor souls who go into the comedy blockbuster thinking they've signed up to watch The Lego Movie by way of Independence Day.

[76] "It manages to achieve the weird effect of feeling overlong and choppy at the same time, like someone edited the film with a pair of garden shears," wrote Randy Cordova in The Arizona Republic.

[77] Marjorie Baumgarten of The Austin Chronicle said the film is "flat-footed and grows tedious after the first hour" but praised the 3D effects which "enhances the action".

[80] Conversely, Katie Walsh, reviewing for the Chicago Tribune, was more positive, saying "despite [its] unfortunate shortcomings, Pixels has its funny and fresh moments, thanks in large part to the supporting comic actors and inventive special effects".