When Universal cancelled their plans to adapt Ouija boards into a movie, it seemed like a bad sign for a lot of the projects the studio had agreed to make with Hasbro. The toy manufacturer struck gold with G.I. Joe and Transformers movies at Paramount, but when Universal struck a deal with the company, they managed to put Battleship into production but languished with a lot of other ideas, including Ouija, Candy Land and a Clue remake, which also got dropped by the studio.
It seemed like they might wait for Battleship's May 18 premiere to decide the future of more board game and toy movies, but Universal has officially backed away from another Hasbro project, leaving Relativity Media to pick it up instead. According to a press release, the company is now teaming up with Hasbro to make Stretch Armstrong, a "live-action tent-pole film" based on the toy you all remember from your childhood. The movie is set for an April 11, 2014 release date, and though at one point Taylor Lautner was attached to star, there's no mention of the Twilight hunk in the press release. Whether that's because of the failure of Abduction or because they're renegotiating his deal, we're not sure.
The funny thing is Relativity Media and Universal used to be closely linked-- before it ventured into self-distribution in 2010 and 2011, Universal distributed a lot of Relativity-produced films, including the Oscar-winning The Fighter and huge hits like Hop and Couples Retreat. Relativity is now self-distributing many of its films, including the recent Haywire and Immortals, and Stretch Armstrong appears to be their attempt to establish themselves as big-budget producers on the level of Universal themselves. Whether or not they can do that by picking up a project that Universal seemed unwilling to make remains to be seen.
