With the ever-increasing flood of reboots and remakes spewing forth from the seemingly soulless bowels of the Hollywood film industry, I was feeling pretty confident that Hollywood execs were left with scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for ways to snatch up your hard earned cash on a weekend feature flick Everything from comic book movies, horror/slasher flicks, and old 80’s films are getting the “Let’s do it again, only better!” treatment.

 

Hollywood, however, is apparently not happy with scrapping just the bottom of the barrel. Oh no. They’re going to scrape the sides, too. Whatever filth and sludge that has been clinging to the side of said proverbial barrel of asinine movie ideas as some how inspired Hollywood that there are more obscure film genres that should be re-explored. The newest obscure genre movie execs have reset their greedy eyes upon is a genre that screams of desperation …the board game genre.

 

Just to clarify, I’m not referring to preexisting films such as Jumanji or Zathura. These are films that centered on mystical board games that never existed in the first place. I’m referring to actual good old-fashioned, family-fun-night, dice-tossing, card-drawing board games: Battleship. Monopoly. Candy Land. Clue. These are the newest inspirational devices of Hollywood filmmakers. In fact, all of the aforementioned board games are being made into films. And I can’t help but weep for the future of American cinema.

 

So is Hollywood treating this like a serious idea? Well, if there’s money to be made, you can pretty much guarantee it. But just how serious Hollywood is treating is the unbelievable part. Director Ridley Scott (Blade Runner. Gladiator) recently took up duties to direct the film adaptation of Monopoly. Director Michael Bay’s (Transformers, Transfomers: Rise of the Fallen) company Platinum Dunes will be producing a Ouija Board film adaptation. (Though this is not the first time Ouija has been the center of a film). And Candy Land found its director through Universal Studios, Kevin Lima (Enchanted).

 

My only hope is that we’ll see Samuel L. Jackson playing the role of the shoe dropping f-bombs left-and-right, ouija boards will be exploding, and the Candy Land film will be considered the greatest drug-trip film of all time.

 

As for the board game Clue, aside from being grouped in with the previous films, it also falls under the category of a remake. Back in 1985, Clue already saw silver-screen time as a semi-adequate comedy with an all-star ensemble cast headed by Tim Curry (whom I personally felt carried the film). Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy) recently signed up to direct this remake. Honestly though, this is the only film I see working on some level. Clue does have the murder-mystery plot built in. I’ll stash these film away as a “we’ll see” after I hear more.

 

As for the other films, the fact that Hollywood is actually going through with these films is an insult to both the film industry itself and to the intelligence of moviegoers everywhere. I used to think that the continuous reboots and remakes were bad enough. But considering this new venture by filmmakers, I almost already long for the idea of reboots and remakes. I can at least accept that some sort of real imagination is used to re-envision older films.

 

But heck, if you’re going to make a movie about children racing through a sugarcoated paradise, I suppose some sort of imagination is needed to pull it off. Just don’t expect to find me in line on opening day for any of these films. Maybe I’ll Netflix them…

 

~James B. LaPoint

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