(Meet Retard Pig, Chief of Board Game Property Acquisitions at Sony)

Amazing.  After View-Master, Battleship, Candyland, and Monopoly were bought as movie properties, you’d think the people involved would be tarred, feathered, and exiled to Dr. Moreau’s Island O’ Dipsh-ts.  But this is Hollywood, so instead everyone copied them.  Like Sony, who just bought Risk, the game of world domination.

Property, which pits players against one another in a quest to annex all of the world’s territories, has become desirable thanks to the box office success of the Paramount adaptations of Hasbro’s Transformers and G.I. Joe.

Risk is like Transformers because…. uh… they’re both toys?  Kids play with them both?  By that logic, my penis is a video game.

“The strategic thinking and the tactical gambles that players must take in the game are what make Risk a classic, thoroughly engaging game,” said Columbia prexy Doug Belgrad. “Those elements translated into an action-packed, thrilling story are what will make this a uniquely exciting movie.” [Variety]

Here, I’ve got something for you to option.  It’s the word “adventure.”  This is a proven property that’s sure to be a great movie, all you have to do is write it.

Optioning board games as movie properties is the most idiotic trend since the Easter Island natives cut down all their trees to make giant head statues and had to eat each other.

A remake of Short Circuit is a really good idea, as you can see from this quote by one of the producers:

We’re bringing Number 5 into the 21st Century and taking advantage of the improvements in robotics that are so massive that robots are now performing heart surgeries in hospitals,” Producer David Foster said. [Variety]

And in case you still had any doubts about a remake, don’t.  They hired the director of Paul Blart: Mall Cop to direct it.  He’s Sassy Ostrich’s favorite.

Dimension Films has signed Steve Carr to direct “Short Circuit,” the remake of the 1986 sci-fi pic. Carr is coming off the Kevin James hit “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.”  Scripted by Dan Milano (“Robot Chicken”), the remake is a robot reboot that brings the iconic Johnny 5 into the 21st century. Built by the military to be a highly sophisticated weapon, Johnny 5 develops a conscience and personality after being hit by lightning. He befriends a lonely boy and his fractured family. [Variety]

Look, I have as fond of memories of Johnny 5 as the next guy, especially the time those Puerto Ricans taught him how to steal car stereos.  But calling Johnny 5 “iconic” is like saying The Noid is an American institution.

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When Seth Green’s “on-set freakout video” hit the web the other day, I like many others, dismissed it as fake and promptly ignored it.  Then they released “security cam footage” a couple days later supposedly showing the mugging he was pissed about, and the mugging looked a little too clear, and the freakout still seemed a little too cliché, but I wondered if maybe I was just jaded from too many lame viral videos.  Turns out, not.

[From YahooFinance via videogum] Nestlé USA today announced the launch of “Dude, Where’s My Bar?” an innovative online narrative game for consumers to help solve the mystery surrounding the October 2 theft of Green’s vintage Butterfinger bar. The “lite” alternate reality game starring Seth Green will call upon the clever, irreverent thinking of Butterfinger fans, as they compete to find and solve clues that could lead to the return of Green’s missing bar and a one-of-a-kind grand prize: a solid-gold Butterfinger bar worth $10,000.

Green collaborated with Butterfinger to produce “Dude, Where’s My Bar?” using comedy and the real world as a platform [comedy and the real world? how innovative!]. Dubbed an “alternate reality game lite” (ARGL) [!!!], DudeWheresMyBar.com propels fans into an entertaining storyline created by the comedic genius of Green and the one-and-only iconic candy bar brand.

Oh man, there’s no surer sign of marketing genius than faking a violent crime to sell candy bars!  Hey, did you see Jennifer Love Hewitt getting brutally raped on the set of Ghost Hunter the other day?  PSYCHE!  Turns out they just wanted her Hot Pocket!  So disband your lynch mobs and send them on over to Albertson’s for our new gangrape gruyere, you hungry vigilante you.  Seriously though, I wish these people would all die in a car fire.  Join me after the jump for an awful PR quote circle jerk party.

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(“I shoot pistol first, ping pong ball rater”)

The more time you spend writing about movies, the more you wonder if the people who make them ever actually watch them. The latest graphic novel to spawn an adaptation is Platinum Studios’ ‘Mal Chance’, but you can just call it Wanted: The Squeakwel.

“Mal Chance” tells the story of Lola, part of an ancient clan of assassins targeted for death by a powerful gangster. Her only recourse is to bring down the gangster’s entire operation with the help of an honest FBI agent who is unaware of her true identity.

Please hold for asinine PR quote… *click, static, fax machine sound*

“Mal Chance” is a “wonderfully visual world steeped with contemporary and complex characters, all playing on the edge of life and death decisions,” [producer Tony] Krantz said. [Variety]

World… steeped with.  Playing on the edge… of decisions.  Dammit, looks like the metaphor machine is one the fritz again.  Hey, I wonder if Lola will be a hot chick wearing leather.  Yeah!  And then maybe her and the FBI agent could fall in love. But when he discovers her secret identity, it threatens everything!  Jeez, how come no one ever thinks of this stuff?

Holy God do I wish I could take a time machine back to six months ago before every tool in Hollywood had heard of MMA.  The latest?  David Henrie of the Disney channel’s Wizards of Waverly Place (yeah, I haven’t heard of him either, I think he might be a lesbian) is planning to develop and star in The Weapon. What’s that, you ask?  Why it’s an adaptation of the most original comic book ever.

“Weapon” follows martial arts enthusiast and inventor Tommy Zhou, who has developed a ground-breaking portable innovation that an evil order will stop at nothing to steal. Released in 2007, “Weapon” was created by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.

A “portable innovation”?  You mean like, a fleshlight?  A suitcase bomb?  A flask?  Quit being so f’cking coy.  But getting back to what I said about MMA, gird your loins for awful PR quotes part two…

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