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Sony Pictures announced today it's acquired the motion picture rights to the board game of world conquest, "Risk", from Hasbro. Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach, presidents of Columbia Pictures, say the film will be produced and developed by Hasbro’s Brian Goldner and Bennett Schneir and Overbrook Entertainment's James Lassiter. Belgrad pointed to the success of movies from toys Transformers and G.I. Joe (but not to the dismal movie from the board game Clue) to claim audiences have "shown a great desire for films that bring to life everything that has made these franchise properties stand the test of time. The strategic thinking and the tactical gambles that players must take in the game are what make RISK a classic, thoroughly engaging game. Those elements translated into an action-packed, thrilling story are what will make this a uniquely exciting movie.” (Uh, I think that pic was called War Games.) "Risk" invented in 1957 by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse as La Conquête du Monde (The Conquest of the World). Two years later, Parker Brothers published the game in the U.S. as "Risk" as the first board game to offer nonlinear movement.
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Title Studio Gross 1 Dear John Sony $30.5 M 2 Avatar Fox $22.9 M 3 From Paris With Love Lionsgate $8.2 M 4 Edge Of Darkness Warner $6.9 M 5 Tooth Fairy Fox $6.6 M 6 When In Rome Disney $5.5 M 7 The Book Of Eli Warner $4.7 M 8 Crazy Heart Fox $3.6 M 9 Legion Sony $3.5 M 10 Sherlock Holmes Warner $2.5 M 11 The Blind Side Warner $2.5 M 12 Up In The Air Paramount $2.3 M 13 The Lovely Bones Paramount $2.3 M 14 Alvin And The Chipmu Fox $2.1 M 15 It's Complicated Universal $2.1 M 16 The Spy Next Door Lionsgate $0.9 M 17 An Education SPC $0.8 M 18 A Single Man Weinstein $0.6 M 19 Extraordinary Measur CBS $0.5 M 20 Precious Lionsgate $0.5M SOURCE: HOLLYWOOD.COMBox Office Poll
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Clue is a brilliant movie!
Pathetic – between this and Asteroids, the studios can now officially call it a career. 100% creatively bankrupt. Why not a movie based on checkers? I also understand Hot Pockets are quite popular. Perhaps there’s a high concept comedy in there somewhere? Who owns the rights?
“Hot Pockets” lol
Hot pockets…very funny!!! Watch out!! Here comes the movies based on all those BS reality shows…if this happens I want 35% commission for the idea.
Roll them dice baby!!!
Is there a film version of “Monopoly” in the works? What about “Boggle”? Oooh, or better yet, “Scabble—the Movie”: “Watch Rick ‘Spelly’ Spellington (Will Smith) get a triple word score as he races to prevent nuclear annihilation by spelling the word ‘annihilation’!!!”
Guess regular ol’ scripts just ain’t good enough for the young ‘uns anymore…
I have an idea for a “franchise”, McDonalds the movie! If that does well, they could move on to Burger King the movie, Taco Bell/Pizza Hut the movie (they already have a song).
Dude, chill!
You’re going to kill my Jiffy Lube:The Musical project giving away ideas like that.
Fox loved the first draft but they want to strengthen the arc of the cashier/love interest.
What do you think is next?
- Monopoly?
- Chess?
- Chutes & Ladders?
I’m sure they can make a heck of a movie about Chutes & Ladders.
It might be similar to Mario Brothers!
So much for saying Amy Pascal has never taken one in her life.
What?! CLUE is a fantastic cult classic! I doubt Transformers or G.I. JOE will ever have a consistent re-watchable nature as that timeless and terrible film starring Tim Curry.
Here Here!!!! CLUE is a comedic masterpiece of epic proportion… Now I’m gonna go home and sleep with my wife!
RISK
SUMMER 2012
A MICHAEL BAY FILM
Tagline: The world is my explosive palate.
Budget: Do you really need to ask?
Cast: TBA. Waiting for the girls to turn 18. Megan Fox is too old.
So, a six hour long movie that ends when my drunk roommate gets annoyed that he’s losing and flips the board over? Sign me up.
Not one to be late for the train, Universal just secured the rights to “Tic Tac Toe.” Meanwhile, sources say Fox is fast-tracking an animated version of “Yahtzee.” While across town, Paramount is weighing in with a fantasy/thriller musical version of “Show And Tell.”
Development executives at all of the majors are in agreement that in trying economic times, audiences will be drawn to these childhood classics in the same manner they’re drawn to comfort food and domestic beer. One agent was recently overheard telling some of his compadres over tequila shots at Cafe Was, “I’m talkin’ about f***in’ tentpoles. I’m not just putting ‘Yahtzee’ into play, I’m thinking ‘Yahtzee 3: The Jr. Edition.’ Who knew that dumb old f*** Milton Bradley would hold the key to the future of the entertainment industry!”
Hold on now!!! Don’t forget “Cold Feet, a Game that’s Neat”, “Operation”,”Hungry,Hungry Hippo” and that all time favorite “Mouse Trap”….ooops that belongs to Disney.
I love pre-branded properties. Looking forward to Kitchen-Aid Mixer, The Movie. Assholes.
Stop going to this shit and they’ll stop making it. Everything points to a resurgence of ’70s style film making as the studios wonder why no one is going to see their crap and the next Easy Rider is making money. But between no and then, blood’s gonna spill.
The “dismal movie version of Clue”???!?!?!?!?!?!? You’re adding too much crack to your waffles this morning, Nikki.
That’s idiotic.
What’s next the movie rights to Rival Dog food?
‘Dismal’? Sure, Clue was a box-office disaster, but the film itself was a delightful farce that has stood the test of time.
Uh, both Transformers and Gi Joe are action toys, with “characters” (if one wants to call Optimus Prime and SnakeEyes that) and a “story” (if one wants to call it that).
To point to those two and go, well, they show that “Toy Adaptions” is the hot new genre (and how many video game adaptations, already in the original format much more cinematic than any other thing, were actually successful?), let’s do a game adaptation of a game that has neither characters, nor story… yeah, that sounds like a good idea… how retarded do you have to be?
Risk is a war game, nothing more, nothing less. It’s not a movie, since it has no story, just strategic moves and counter moves on a global scale. In the real world, we call that “gun boat politics”. It’s on the news. More at 11.
Transformers was successful, because it had giant robots smashing crap, Megan Fox in Daisy Dukes, and some brilliantly staged fight sequences. Mixed in with a bad story, sure, but…
… a single move in Risk translates into a couple of hundred thousand soldiers, in a Napoleonic-ear setting, occupying vast stretches of land. And we have read that book and seen that movie. It was called “War and Peace”. To adequately show a game for world domination, well… you either go for a ground view (but then it’s not the game) OR you have a lot of people around maps, talking and pointing at territories like, uh, Afghanistan and say, “invade that”. Not very cinematic, now, is it?
Now that is the kind of original and innovative thinking that this town needs! Kudos to Matt and Doug!
I don’t get it. I really don’t. Why buy the rights to “Risk” or “Battleship” when you can just do an historic epic/sea battle without needing to buy the rights to a board game?
Are the games really going to sell so much better only because they have a movie made based on them (however that’s going to work). Are the tie-in products for a film so much better because you already have an established board game?
Is there an established and lucrative “Risk” fanbase I don’t know about?
Are Sony completely out of their minds? If they paid a buck for this they pissed the money up the wall.
Transformers and GI Joe are toys, little boys run round staging battles, having fun…
Risk is rolling dice for six hours at a time, it’s a f***ing nerdy board game you douches… what are you going to sell as a tie-in? 1 inch tall plastic soldiers??? Nobody has played this snooze-athon in a 100 years, at least nobody who has any contact with the opposite sex…look up the B.O. of Dungeons & Dragons (2001) to see where this is heading.
What next? Are you going to make a film of Trivial Pursuit or Monopoly. Jeez, no wonder the studio is bankrupt.
“Clue” may have been a box office failure, but that film is actually quite awesome. Tim Curry is a genius.
I agree! I thought it was a very clever and funny movie! The entire cast was great.
Sorry but I think “Risk” would be curtains for Sony. Anybody remember “Clue” the movie?
DH is right that the game is geeky, but thousands of students globally play competitive Risk in college-on-college tournaments. The tie-ins are the video games and the characters developed to flesh it out. Done on an epic scale, this could work. Really. (Picture Peter O’Toole riding like mad yelling “Kamchatka!!!!”
In this risk-averse city, what’s next? Optioning consumer brands like Glad Bags or Febreze? If you H’wood types want money so much, why don’t you go into high finance? Or prostitution?
PS If you’re going to option a board game or two, get your mitts on the deluxe Milton Bradley series from the 1980s, namely “Axis and Allies,” “Shogun,” “Fortress America,” “Broadsides and Boarding Parties,” and “Conquest of the Empire.”
I know, that’s what I’ve never been able to figure out. Why are these people involved in film. You want to make money, GO TO WALL STREET! They have nothing but contempt for artists. They’re clearly semi-illiterate, with no concept of what constitutes a story. Newsflash, you need an audience to buy your product and the audience thinks your product sucks.
At least the Monopoly adaptation by Ridley Scott could have a tagline:
“Monopoly… Do not pass Go… Do not collect $200″
but this…
this is just…
“Risk… Guess you… rolled low dice.”
Seriously?
When does the Chutes and Ladders movie debut?
And they say executives are risk-averse. Take that!
Studio deals are rumored to be in the works for Gin Rummy, Tag, Simon Says, and Canasta.
…audiences have “shown a great desire for films that bring to life everything that has made these franchise properties stand the test of time.” Translation – we’d hire muggers to stand outside theaters and rob people going in, but that’s illegal.
Stop the cynicism now! Return the movie business to an artform.
I’m sorry, but CLUE has one of the best casts ever assembled for a feature film and is endlessly quotable. It is one of the most beloved cult classics of the 1980s and is revolutionary for it’s triple theatrical release endings. It reminds viewers what is so fun about the timeless board game while also being a solid feature film whodunit in the classic style of Agatha Christie.
Transformers and G.I. Joe, on the other hand, are steaming piles no one has kind words for and people quickly forgot those movies once they left the theaters, or at least tried to wash the bad taste out of their mouths. That they are considered benchmarks for future movie franchises makes me ill.
Did you just dis CLUE? CLUE is a hilarious classic comedy. Making movies like this is a cowardly move, however with the right creative team and with enough creative freedom from the studios it can sometimes produce a good movie (CLUE, for example). It can be a very creative exercise, using something like this as inspiration for a story… Look at “Sunday in the Park with George,” inspired by just a painting. But if the laziness and fear that led to the decision to adapt a board game intrudes into the creative process, infusing it with easy decisions and risk-aversion, the result will be shit (GI JOE).
Plus, I can’t wait for PEPSI: THE MOVIE
Another hilarious Sony rights acquisition. Whoever doubts they will be the top bidder for Terminator rights, please note this one.
I’m holding out until Lars Von Trier’s planned adaptation of Hungry Hungry Hippos, starring Sean Penn as the Hippo who discovers that he really hungers for the love of his female Hippo friend (Rene Zellwegger) instead of little white marbles.
I think the next rights acquisition appropriate for Sony should be “Hungry Hungry Hippos” or maybe “Backgammon.”
WTF are the Sony execs thinking? Is this all the geniuses in TinselTown can come up with for movies?
Isn’t there some sort of court for creative bankruptcy? Sheese.
I’m really glad about this qnnouncement – maybe now everyone can see how untalented this duo is. Z…
Serenity, you have no idea about Hollywood, you troll around this site to learn about it from all these angry executives on here who wished they had successful movies. You trash a movie like Transformers – have you talked to kids lately? Have not listened to the parents out there who bitch about how many dvd’s and Transformer toys they have had to buy? Two movies that have made from Box office and DVD’s over 2 billion dollars? And a film that Pascal passed on by the way. You think hollywoods forgetting that fast??
Maybe it was a joke and I just didn’t find it funny, but I seem to think I’ve heard through the grapevine that a Monopoly movie is already in the works.
Nikki,
I usually defend you but you or your intern that wrote this is full of sh*. CLUE is one of the best movies of all time. Tim Curry. Christopher Lloyd, and MADELINE FREAKING KAHN??? Are you kidding me? The line where “flames…flames” are shooting from her head? The resolution to “I…am…a singing telegram…” I’ve seen this movie over 100 times. You can’t compare it to Transformers or GI Joe and the first Transformers was actually pretty good.
And Pirates of the Caribbean is a ride… If they create a big epic background and interesting characters and storylines, it could work. Not all games can be movies, but if you get the vision right, risk can work. It will be major $$$$ and either be amazing or a total piece of shit.
Are you joking? Clue was a great movie. Didn’t make any money. But a hell of a lot better than Transformers or GI Joe.
JENGA
Every Move Brings You Closer to Disaster
That Clue put-down is ridiculous. The movie is Fantastic, maybe the best comedy of the 80s. Every year the Nuart holds a screening of it and every year it sells out. Yet you point to the shifty Transformers as a mark of success? I think maybe you’ve never seen either movie.
Could they get any lamer?
I’m so close to the rights to “Kotex”, I can’t stand it. Three sisters, Butterfly, Maxi, and Carefree. Butterfly is the winged superhero, Maxi has the power to absorb the toxins of the universe and save the planet from self-destruction. However, it is Carefree, who has lived in the shadow of her two more powerful sisters all her life, dropped out of school, and has shunned the family to live her own ‘carefree’ existence…who must realize her importance…her family duty…and come to the rescue of her two more powerful sisters.
Newsnuker and Gonzalo Lira tie for comment of the year.
non-linear gameplay = non-linear movie
Is it safe to say that Hollywood has officially jumped the shark?
No wonder experts say that the Chinese film industry is on its way to global dominance. I doubt if you will see a Chinese film based on Mahjong.
How about a film adaptation of “Sorry”. That way when the movie is over the filmmakers have already apologized for their terrible film.
Hey, no one has mentioned “Operation” or “Life”. Maybe a movie about Cheetoes? If the film industry keeps going down this road we will be seeing movies devoid of creativity.