Even though it would have appeared Hollywood learned a lesson with this summer’s Battleship which lost Universal $80 million dollars on their extravagant investment, Hasbro and independent production and finance company Emmett/Furla Films have singed a deal to bring more board game properties to the big screen – oh joy.
Making things even more perplexing is the proposed games to be adapted which, with the exception of perhaps Action Man, have even less potential for feature length adaptation than Battleship, and that’s saying something.
Production on Monopoly is hoping to begin in 2013 from a screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (a perplexing duo whose scripts range from Ed Wood to Agent Cody Banks). Ridley Scott was rumoured for the project a while back as well, though don’t expect to see him jumping on to this one, if he was ever legitimately considering it in the first place.
Not much is known about Action Man and Hungry, Hungry Hippos though the latter is expected to go the animated route. I guess real life Hippos aren’t very cooperative on set or perhaps having these beasts eat marbles for our entertainment would be considered animal cruelty.
For those not familiar with Action Man, it is a 1960’s British toy from Hasbro which is essentially the equivalent of G.I. Joe in the United States. Presumably there are a slew of iconic vehicles, gadgets, sidekicks and villains to go along with Action Man though I severely doubt this brand carries the same clout as its American equivalent.
All of these projects are expected to move ahead with significantly lower budgets than Battleship, with Emmett stating he hopes to spend less than $100 million on each of them. The Emmett/Furla group is also behind The Tomb starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, Two Guns with Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington and Broken City with Wahlberg and Russell Crowe.
Seeing as Universal actually paid a stiff penalty back in February to not make any more of Hasbro’s projects ($5 million a piece for every un-made film) after what was supposed to be a six year agreement, it is truly surprising to see more board game flicks being announced so quickly after one of the year’s biggest disasters.
And if you can’t wait that long to see Monopoly hit the big screen, tide yourself over with the upcoming Candy Land film starring Adam Sandler.
We’ll keep you updated as these “movies” head into production.
(Source: LA Times)