The power of a name or brand cannot be overstated. Which is the only explanation for a new movie being made based on the board game we know as Monopoly. And this isn’t some small, independent picture either, with Ridley Scott set to direct the film.
I don’t really understand how this is going to work, and neither Scott or executive producer Brian Goldner, who is also the CEO of Hasbro, makers of the board game, have provided many clues. However, it seems the big-screen version of Monopoly is to have its roots set firmly in the real world.
Goldner told MTV:
“The whole world is about the financial markets. You can’t turn on the news today without understanding the financial markets and what’s going on out there.”
“He’s built these great big worlds of imagination. Combine that with Pamela Pettler who’s writing this great script about real people kind of playing a real-life game of ‘Monopoly,’ not the board game, although they’re icons of the game. And then you really get the idea why this story could make sense right now.”
Ridley Scott added:
“I have to direct it. We’re in progress right now. We’re having it written. We have identified a pretty good story and it is fundamentally a movie, not a game, probably describing in a way the characters in the film, the passion of the game, and how the game came about.”
This is all a little confusing. Neither of the two men seem to know exactly what form the film is going to take. It’s going to be set in the real world. It’s going to touch on the global economic crisis. It’s going to be about the game. It’s going to be about how the game came about. What? Who? Where?
Movies based on video games hardly ever work, and with them you have a set or well-rounded characters, a ready-made world, and a storyline to riff off. Board games don’t have any of these things yet Ridley Scott is directing a movie about one? What has the world come to?
