Yesterday Screen Rant reported on the bewildering news that Hollywood is going to be making a movie based on the classic arcade game, Asteroids – a game with no story or mythology behind it, which thus it begged the question of how they plan to make a movie out of it, and more importantly, what’s the point?
Well, today we’ve got news that pushes the “WTF?” bar to a whole new level: They’re apparently making a movie based on the View-Master toy.
Yes, that’s right, that device you look into that allows you to view 3D images. I know, you really can’t make this stuff up…
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Fringe co-producer/writer Brad Caleb Kane announced on Twitter that after he’s done with an upcoming film called Uprising, he’ll start working on a View-Master movie for Dreamworks. There’s no word on a plot as of yet (an early report stated it would center around aliens, but that has since been debunked), but Transformers screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are reportedly behind the film. It is being described by Kane as, “like the old 80’s Amblin movies: Goonies, Young Sherlock… In that vein.”
For those of you who may not be familiar with the View-Master, it came about in 1939 and originally wasn’t a toy, but rather a device for people to have the chance to view picturesque 3D images of tourist attractions and other locations. However, years later it began to be looked at and marketed as a children’s toy.
View-Master being marketed as a children's toy.
The Hollywood trend of turning toys, board games and video games into movies just seems to continue on full steam ahead. Monopoly, Battleship, Stretch Armstrong and the recently announced Asteroids are just a handful in development at the moment. But I think a View-Finder tops them all in terms of, “How can they even make this into a movie?”
Asteroids at least incorporates SOME kind of action (albeit a small triangle shoots at asteroids), but View-Master is just a device you look through! I’m struggling to think what plot they can even come up with for this one: Perhaps it will center around the invention of the product, rather than the product itself. Maybe it will be in the vein of Horton Hears A Who! where a world inhabited by creatures can be found in the slides you look at through the device. It really is a head-scratcher of the highest order.
View-Master is actually one of those toy adaptations I’m interested in seeing, for no other reason than to see just what they hell they come up with in terms of plot. I think if Kane makes this into a workable movie he deserves some sort of award.
What do you make of a View-Master movie? Any thoughts on what plot they could derive from the toy/device?
No release date has been mentioned yet for the View-Master adaptation.
Source: ComingSoon (via /Film) and Twitter
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26 Comments
Haha, this just keeps on getting better and better!
But you know what, maybe this could be like Inkheart where a fantasy story comes to life when a kid looks through the vista-view?
ha! maybe it’s a movie intended to be viewed through a viewmaster!
In an age of Ipods, PCs, and the Internet, ONE TOY fights for survival in an evergrowing “e-world”… Starring George Clooney, Mel Gibson, and a cameo by Mr. T. You *will* believe what you see, is real…
I am not surprised this was greenlit.
it is a 3D viewing device.
It is a perfect fit for the 3D boom that is going on.
@Zipper Stevens,
Haha. Nice one!
@Gary,
That may be, but what’s the story/plot?
Obvious double-feature potential when paired with the “Bazooka Bubble Gum” movie as “most desperate movie ideas in the Universe.”
Re: Gary’s comment…
Might we have found a movie display format that can successfully contain the over-hammed acting excess of Bill Shatner and the persistent “Whoa is me!” acting style of Keanu Reeves?
Seems Gary has…
The difference between this and the movies “Goonies” and “Young Sherlock Holmes” is so mind-numbingly simple, and so patently obvious, Stevie Wonder can see it while playing outfielder in a darkened Wrigley Field @ 12 midnight:
The movies “Goonies” and “Young Sherlock Holmes” had this thing called a storyline or a plot…a sequence of events with an intelligent idea and script plotline development.
It’s like making a movie about a fork…
Steven!!!! Jeeez, ya blew my whole movie script!
No No No, I thought of it first!
But you can take the spoon if you want to
Etch A Sketch
Mr/Mrs Potato Head
Slinky
Anyone got anymore
Might as well make them all because it seems this madness will never end..Although the above mentioned toys all had roles in Toy Story
I thought remakes were the bottom of the hollywood barrel…
ARE YOU SERIOUS?..NO REALLY ..NO…NOOOOOOOO HOLLYWOOD, WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO ORIGINALITY?..WHAT A STUPID IDEA…HOW ABOUT HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS? WHY IS HOLLYWOOD RIDDLED WITH REMAKES,REBOOTS,AND TRYING TO MAKE TOYS INTO MOVIES? HE-MAN YA COOL, THUNDERCATS-SURE, VIEWMASTER? ANYBODY AROUND WILL SAY “THATS REALLY A…NO COMMENT”
The story seems pretty obvious to me–wouldn’t it have to be something like this (first off, an explanation of View Master). You look through binocular-like view finders and see a still image. It is 3-D in that the foreground, mid-ground, and distance are very distinctly separated. When you’re done looking at one image, you click a level, and it advances to the next image. OK, story: someone (maybe a little boy & girl) look into a View Master, think it’s awesome, and then we get a glimpse into the lives of all the things INSIDE the View Master pictures. . .the lives they lead when we’re not looking. Exactly like a million other movies: Toy Story, Tron, any of a ton of movies about being sucked into the world of televisions characters, etc. There’s been a million movies made like this. Maybe even the young boy and girl View Master fans get sucked into the world of the View Master. What do you think? What else could it be? Oh, then make View Masters popular again and sell a million, then have old ones sell for buckets of cash on auction sites.
Ooops. By “. . .press a level. . .” I meant “. . .press a lever. . .”
And the Oscar goes to “View Finder”
That’s when I reach for my revolver…
790: That’s how I escaped my certain fate. . .
however i agree that this something beyond stupid much much more than u do but…
maybe its something like jumanji….. i mean the characters of the movie will look in the stupid device and they will enter into a stupid magic world…..
or also u can do this to a troubled child character and when he enters the magic word it is actually hes imagination where he run to to be alone and far from the real world
(in this case this movie may get nominated for best picture!!!)
u know movies r about the creativity………..but u know hollywood,s producers……… its all about $$$$
but it still sucks……………….
I am looking at my orginal View Master right now in my study. Exactly like the one in the ad. It’s from 1961 and still works. I guess that is why my wife wants to display it along with the reels from the 60’s. Disneyland, Atlas Rockets and Jack and the Beanstalk………………(Christ, a Movie?) None of today’s generation even know what a view- master is.
here are some games id love to see made..
LIFE – this could actually be a drama/ alice in wonderland type feel where you have no control over anything.
Metroid- been said but this would be an easy adaptation to the B.S.
Zelda- with like a lord of the rings feel/script
and more once i think of em..
My only fear is that if they pull this off that they’ll try this with every toy ever made, lowering the bar on movie quality for the next decade.
It’ll probably have something to do with a magic view-master or perhaps just take place in the past, the distant past, when people might have found it entertaining.
July 4, 2009 at 3:21 pm, Tim “Cloverfield” said:
“None of today’s generation even know what a view- master is.”
On the contrary…today, you mention “View master”, people think “Barbara Walters”…(*grin*)
GUNSMITH?
Learn to BACK OFF the CAPS LOCK button…intelligent thoughts can be expressed without yelling…
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