As you might of heard, Battleship wasn’t exactly a big success. While it did manage to make money overseas, here in the States it only managed to gross $65 million on a $209 million budget (not to mention that it opened in second place to The Avengers, which had already been in theaters for three weeks). You’d think it would be enough to have studios shy away from the idea of bringing board games to the big screen, but apparently Hollywood is a magical place where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Emmet/Furla Films has signed a deal with Hasbro that will see them produce movies based on games like Monopoly, Hungry Hungry Hippos and Action Man. This news comes just a few months after it was reported that Universal paid millions of dollars NOT to make Hasbro movies.
It should be noted that this actually isn’t the first time the game company has tried to make a Monopoly movie. Back when the partnership with Universal was still on to develop the project, Ridley Scott was hired as a producer. Apparently the details haven’t changed much in that case, as Scott will just now producing alongside Emmeet/Furla instead. That project will be the first one they will make.
In an interview, Randell Emmett explained that his plan is to turn the movies into “family movies with broad appeal,” and that they aren’t phased by the failings of Battleship. "Everything is about how you approach it in price," he said. "We're excited to make these movies in budget ranges where we are comfortable."
This is just so very dumb. More than just being about the quality of Battleship, a big part of the reason people were turned off of the movie was because the idea of a film based on a board game is ridiculous. I understand that Hasbro loved all of the money they made from the Transformers movies, but seriously, we don’t need a Hungry, Hungry Hippos adaptation.
