As everyone knows, board games are the new hot properties in Hollywood. They have name recognition, there's usually a copy in half the households in America, and there's usually a hint of a plot to kick things off with. So while Warner Bros. is still trying to figure out what to do with their A-list superheroes, toymaker Hasbro has used the success of the toy-based G.I. Joe and Transformers films to turn their greatest-hits home games into movies with Universal Pictures. Here's a list of the games that will get movies, and the games we want to see on the big screen.
Battleship - Hancock director Peter Beg will adapt this naval warfare game into what we can only assume will be a naval warfare movie. We're curious to see how he'll make this more interesting than Pearl Harbor.
Clue - Already made into a comedy in the 1980s with Tim Curry and an all-star cast, the new version of this whodunit will be directed by Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski.
Monopoly - Trying to imagine a Ridley Scott-directed movie focusing on the state of the economy, and how that translates into the banking board game we all know and secretly hate, makes our brain hurt.
Candyland - The director of Enchanted, making a movie about a gumdrop kingdom with gingerbread houses and spun-sugar dreams? We actually really, really want to see this.
Ouija - Michael Bay's production company, making a horror movie about a board game that summons spirits? Somebody send that man a copy of the Eliza Dushku movie Open Graves, which is about basically the same thing.
Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots - While it's not an officially licensed movie, the upcoming Real Steel, about robots who box in a future where human boxing is forbidden, sounds like the perfect translation.
U.S. & World
Now here's what we want to see:
Chutes and Ladders - Fleeing from a serial killer, a young couple escapes underground, becoming lost in a subterranean network of ladders and pipes. They need to find a way out, while staying one step ahead of the masked, knife-wielding psychopath in there with them.
Trivial Pursuit - If Monopoly can be about the economy, then why can't Trivial Pursuit (or Pursuits, in the film), be a romantic comedy about a competitive trivia expert who falls in love with a girl, but risks losing her when he remembers more about Science and Nature than about their relationship?
Operation - In this tense medical drama, a medical student on vacation in Central America is kidnapped and forced to operate on a seriously wounded revolutionary leader. He has to remove bullets and shrapnel from the man without making any mistakes, or touching the sides, or else he dies!
Risk - In the future, the entire Earth is controlled by six men, and every year they secretly declare war on each other, jockeying for dominance from within their command centers. When a young draft-dodger decides that the senseless killing needs to stop, he joins an underground group of rebels looking to return the power to the people.
Jenga - A sorcerer rules the great city of Jenga by fear, and only comes out of his tower long enough to oversee the punishing of the innocent and give displays of his magical prowess. A young thief, dreaming of what treasures await, removes a loose stone to get inside, but once he sees the secrets of the tower, he knows that he must destroy it the same way.
Hungry, Hungry Hippos - Searching for hidden treasure in darkest Africa, fortune-hunters have to contend with super-intelligent, carnivorous hippos trained to kill. It's like Congo, but with hippos.
What board game would you like to see as a movie? Roll the dice and take your chances below.
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