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

Screen Rant » hot wheels

More Toy-Based Movies On The Way