You probably already know by now that every game or toy you ever loved in your childhood, be it Candyland or the Where's Waldo? books, is going to be turned into a movie. And you've probably known for months that Universal was planning a Battleship movie, given that they announced back in May that that was the plan.
But now things are set in stone-- Hancock director Peter Berg has officially signed on to direct it, and the release date of July 1, 2011 has been marked off for some naval explosions. Berg told Variety that the plan was to make "a contemporary story of an international five-ship fleet engaged in a very dynamic, violent and intense battle." That word "violence" makes me assume that this will be more of the Transformers model of toy-turned-movie, rather than something trying more to target young children.
So remember all that talk a few days ago about Berg making plans for Hancock 2? You can throw that out now. After Battleship he'll also be working with Universal for Lone Survivor, a true story about a Navy SEAL team ambushed in Afghanistan. If you think that sounds like the kind of project a director can only get away with after turning in a major tentpole for the studio, you're quite right; says Berg, "It was pretty obvious to me they weren't jumping head over heels to make a war film in the Middle East right now. So they said, 'what if you give us Battleship for July 2011, and we guarantee you'll follow with Lone Survivor? I already loved the take we had on Battleship,so that wasn't a hard deal to make."
Among all the Hasbro toys being turned into movies, Battleship is one of the least-awful ideas. Let's just hope that Berg, in his desire to make it as commercial as possible to earn money for his Afghanistan movie, doesn't make it as awful as, say, Transformers. Ball's in your court, man.
