Screen Rant » candyland

Candy Land, Monopoly, Battleship and Stretch Armstrong Updates

Paul Young — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:34:37 +0000

Well the 2009 summer movie season is over for Hasbro and it has been financially successful. Transformers 2 has milked the entire world economy of over $800 million dollars, while G.I. Joe managed to drain the globe of $100 million this past weekend. So what does that mean for Hasbro their future releases?

Well Steve “Frosty” Weintraub over at Collider managed to catch Brian Goldner, President and C.E.O of Hasbro, before a special screening of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and got some interesting answers about a few upcoming projects: Stretch Armstrong, Candy Land, Battleship and Monopoly.

STRETCH ARMSTRONG

First up is Stretch Armstrong, the toy no one played with (seriously do you know anyone that owned one when you were a kid?). According to Goldner, Stretch will be the first movie released out of the lot, with a planned release of 2011. Now I know what you are thinking, what could this movie possibly be about? When asked, Goldner answered with this gem:

“Stretching as a superpower brings a lot of humor to the idea so imagine a big humorous super-powered, super-human kind of movie.”

Sigh, so to sum it up ‘We have no idea what we are doing with this but stretching is funny and my assistant once got his hand stuck in the vending machine trying to get a bag of chips that didn’t fall all the way. So we will probably have that in the movie.”

Seriously, how much of a generic answer can you give during an interview? I picture Patrick Warburton playing Stretch and Universal turning it into an Underdog meets The Tick-type action film for kids. Actually, now that I think about it, Warburton would be a great choice and I might actually go see this film if they choose him to star.

I can’t be too far off with the “humor” Goldner is referring to. Steve Oderkirk is writing the script for Stretch Armstrong. He also wrote Bruce Almighty, Barnyard, Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, and Nutty Professor 2, so I bet you a dollar to donuts that there is more than one hand/foot/head stuck in a elevator/car door/briefcase/trunk type scene where he gets stretch to the breaking point and people walking/riding bikes/carrying heavy objects trip and fall on said appendage – COMEDY GOLD!!!

CANDY LAND

Let’s move on to my favorite board games growing up, Chutes and Ladders Candy Land. Hasbro and Universal have already chosen writer Etan Cohen (Tropic Thunder) and director Kevin Lima (Enchanted) to make their board game dream a reality. The Collider interviewer asks the tough question: “What’s your take on a film like “Candy Land?” Goldner’s lackluster response is as follows:

“Well, “Candy Land” is not just about the board game. If you really think about it, it’s an adventure that a kid goes on with his parents when they go across that board. It’s an adventure game so think of that as the beginning point and take off from there.”

Ok, hold please while I “really think about it”… Nope I don’t see it but if I’m reading between his lines properly, and I’m pretty sure I am, they have no idea what they are going to do with this property either. More than likely, it’ll be turned into a Jumanji/Adventure of Elmo mash up. Two kids, a brother and his precocious younger sister, get a board game for Christmas from their eccentric estranged uncle. They beg their parents to play with them and are transported to a magical Willy Wonka-type world where getting to King Kandy is the only way home. Along the way they met Gramma Nutt, Princess Frostine and dodge the evil Licorice Lord and his henchman Gloppy the Molasses Monster.Oh yeah, and the whole thing will be in 3-D.

Good gravy, I wasn’t even trying and I just made up a script for them to use (they can send all payments to my PayPal account).

Candyland Movie May Not Turn Out As Bad As You Think

Sabrina Cognata — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:15:14 +0000

Candyland, the iconic children’s game is coming to the big screen with even bigger behind the scenes talent. It will have an original story line, which comes as a shock amongst most of the legions of remakes being churned out in Hollywood. I guess with an original idea it’s fairly easy to get top Hollywood talent to sign on to a film – the screenplay is being written by Tropic Thunder’s Etan Cohen and directed by Kevin Lima, the brains behind the widely loved Disney film, Enchanted.

Candyland’s executive producer and CEO of Hasbro Brian Goldner talked about his plans with MTV News:

“Imagine if you took that basic idea of going to a better place, and then allowed the audience to go to that same place together. But then you come to find out, like every other place that’s promised to just be all better and all sweets and candy, you come to find out there’s actually some controversy there as well, that of course the stars of the movie have to solve for.”

Goldner stresses that the tale is “very human and very natural,” which I guess would make sense if we were not talking about a magical land that is made of candy. Still, with the helming of the film story being told by Cohen there is a lot to hope for, especially, after his mega blockbuster, Tropic Thunder. That was more than an action/comedy about Hollywood and movie making – it showed the nuances of the film industry in a way that broke things down for the viewer with little knowlodge of the “industry,” without compromising the story line or the laughs it brought.

In the same way, Lima made a film that could’ve been extremely annoying, and let’s face it animated musicals are oftentimes obnoxious and rarely relatable. His particular ability to make the Enchanted material both refreshing and engaging drew a very wide audience.

In all honesty, I am sort of excited to see where this film goes. Since it’s based on a children’s game I know it will have basic elements of the game, but there really isn’t much of a story associated with Candyland so I’m excited to see what Cohen comes up with and how Lima expresses his vision. Oh and mostly, I am excited to see who they’ll be casting in the film.

More Toy-Based Movies On The Way

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 18:30:22 +0000

The blurring of merchandising and film continues with Mattel aggressively pursuing bringing a “Hot Wheels” movie to the big screen. I’m sure I don’t need to explain to anyone what Hot Wheels are – those cool little metal toy cars that (at least if you’re a guy) you’ve known and loved at some point in your life.

So with brand recognition that strong, how could they NOT make a movie about them, right? RIGHT?

Oh, it’s very early in the movie-making stage for this project… so early in fact they have NO idea which direction to go. It could be Mad Max (but for kids!), or maybe The Fast and the Furious (which was for kids trapped in adult bodies). Oh, and there are other toy-based projects all itching to get started:

Barbie (live action – animated DVDs have sold 62 million copies)
He-Man (at least the script sounds good for this one)
A Magic 8-Ball movie (seriously?)
Monopoly (directed by Ridley Scott, no less. I kid you not.)
Battleship
Candyland

Of course we already have G.I. Joe on its way along with Transformers 2.

Why the excitement to get all these projects going? The wild box office success of Transformers (Damn you Michael Bay!).

But back to Hot Wheels… Barry Waldo, Vice President of entertainment and marketing for Mattel, said:

“There’s a huge scope of what you can do. It’s a billion-dollar brand for us. We want to continue making it relevant for kids. We won’t have the cars talk. That would be off brand position for us. It won’t be another ‘Knight Rider,’ I promise that. We always start out not wanting to make a long toy commercial. We want to make a credible story that will make people go to the theater.”

Uh huh, whatever you say, Barry.

Actually, didn’t we already have a Hot Wheels movie? Yeah… we did… it was called Speed Racer.

Source: Variety via JoBlo