5 Movies We Want To See Adapted From Board Games
We’ve all known it for a while, but now it’s official: Originality in Hollywood is dead. It’s bad enough that we have movies adapted from the toy lines Transformers and G.I. Joe, now Hasbro is bringing their board games to life on the silver screen. Battleship, directed by Peter Berg and starring Liam Neeson, is due in theaters in 2012, and now it’s just been announced that a writer has been hired to pen a screenplay based on the strategy game Risk. And let’s not forget those persistent rumors that Ridley Scott is working on Monopoly. It’s not necessarily an idea without precedent; remember Clue? But still, Clue has to be the only board game in history that has anything that could possibly be referred to as a “plot”.
What does this mean? Well, of course it means it’s time to mock Hollywood mercilessly. You want ideas for movies based on board games (or quasi-board games, as the case may be)? Try these on for size:
Jenga
The Game: Players systematically remove blocks from a tower and place them on top, creating a taller and increasingly unstable tower until it collapses.
The Film: The ultimate disaster movie! Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, 2012) brings us a tale of searing suspense and explosive action as an everyman cop (played by Bruce Willis) attempts to stop a group of terrorists wreaking havoc on the Jenga Tower! It’s like Die Hard for a new generation, but with bigger explosions!
Mouse Trap
The Game: Players cooperatively build a giant and elaborate mouse trap, with which they then attempt to trap each other’s mouse-shaped game pieces.
The Film: The next big smash from DreamWorks Animation, Mouse Trap features a pair of conniving rival mice (voiced by Hugh Laurie and Michael Caine) who attempt to out-do each other by building the better mouse trap. Of course, as things escalate, the game turns a bit deadly. Think The Prestige, but with fewer magicians and more animated mice.
Operation
The Game: A game of hand-eye coordination and fine motor skill, players attempt to remove pieces from from the patient on an operating table without touching the sides of the cavities in the board.
The Film: Director Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy) weaves a terrifying tale of medical horror! A mysterious (and slightly warped) mad doctor (played by Ron Perlman) races to solve the underlying condition that continues to afflict Cavity Sam (Doug Jones) as more and more icky bits are removed from his body. Beware the Frog in His Throat!
Hungry Hungry Hippos
The Game: Players mash on levers that control the mouths of their Hungry Hippos, racing to gobble up more marbles than their opponents.
The Film: Hot off the runaway box office success of Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Jim Carrey stars as a man racing to sate the voracious appetites of his four pet hippos before they can gobble up the entire city! From acclaimed director Raja Gosnell, and featuring WETA Workshop’s most mind-blowing and life-like CGI since Avatar.
Sorry!
The Game: Players race around the game board, attempting to reach “Home” before special Sorry! cards allow their opponents to knock them back to the start.
The Film: In this riveting tale of suspense from writer/director Quentin Tarantino, Samuel L. Jackson plays a father on the edge, trying to rescue his family from the mob and return them safely home. Every time this desperate man is forced to dispatch another of the mob’s thugs, he never forgets to offer a polite apology…while extracting one of his own. (“Say ‘Sorry’ again, motherf***er! Say ‘Sorry’ again!!“)
* * * *
It’s almost sad that it’s come to this. Yet, somehow, I wish some of these ideas seemed more far-fetched. Oh well. Maybe it’ll be okay, as long as that Battleship movie doesn’t look too much like this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkJ5OK34QNY[/youtube]
This post is part of our User Showcase series. You can find Nigel as johnmason on Flickchart. If you’re interested to submit your own story or article describing your thoughts about movies and Flickchart, read our original post for how to become a guest writer here on the Flickchart Blog.
Heh, Jonathan and I were talking potential directors for board game movies the other night. I think you definitely gotta go with Cronenberg for Operation. I would actually watch a movie based on Mousetrap, though. :)
Cronenberg! I should have thought of that! :)
“Bad enough…?” Oh, Nigel…don’t be such an idea snob! Every movie ever made originated at one point with a simple premise no more developed than a board game. “What if two submarines went around blindly trying to destroy the other’s navy?” Does that become Battleship or U-571? Why not both?
I know you were being facetious, but the truth is I think most of those concepts could and would actually work. Why not? Are they really that inferior to “A girl is transported via tornado/rabbit hole to a fantasy land” or “A boy wizard is pitted against the evil wizard who killed his parents?”
I despair at the idea that any premise is inherently unworthy of becoming an interesting story. That perspective is distrustful of, and even denies, imagination–which is, of course, at the heart of all storytelling.
(Bet you didn’t expect me to go all serious and offer a snotty lecture, didja?)
You know what? I’m actually kind of interested in Battleship. Peter Berg has made a couple of decent action movies (The Rundown and The Kingdom come to mind), and who doesn’t love Liam Neeson?
I know the film’s not going to be about two people plugging pegs into their boards and yelling “A-10!” all the time. A good naval battle with Neeson at the helm could be fun.
It is funny to me, though, that writers are having to look to these games for inspiration. But you’re right; that doesn’t mean it couldn’t work.
Biggest problem? There has not been a decent video game adaptation yet. How are board games going to be any better? :)
Well, there is “Clue”. Which is a pretty great board game movie.
Mentioned in the post as probably the only board game that could be considered to have something resembling a “plot”. ;)
I don’t think it’s a matter of writers being forced to adapt these games out of desperation for inspiration. Rather, it’s a matter of making sensible use of a pre-existing property that already is familiar to the public, and can translate into merchandise.
I laugh at those who think so lowly about the recent live action Transformers movie being based on action figures. Really? No one noticed for the last quarter century that scores of comic books and animated series were also based off those same toys? It’s as though film snobs kept quiet about how all this has gone on until it was a chance to badmouth Michael Bay some more.
We would do well to remember that making a ton of money off selling movie rights goes back further than our own short attention spans. Ian Fleming made no secret about his desire to sell the movie rights to his Bond novels. This indignation about the vulgarity of all these cross-media adaptations is absolute nonsense.
The problem with video game adaptations is that newer video games are so sophisticated that a movie is really a step backwards–though no one wants to admit it because that would suggest that video games are superior to films. After spending 30+ hours playing and exploring every nook and cranny in an environment, watching a 2 hour movie would feel like an abridged commercial to the core audience. Gamers want to play, not watch.
I think David Mamet would do great with Pop-o-matic Trouble.