I don't remember why I made this picture. Just go with it.

Enjoy some bite-sized trade news:

McG directing Kevin Costner in a Luc Besson-scripted Secret Service movie. Against all odds, McG continues to get work. Sounds like this one’s in the vein of similarly Besson-written titles Taken/Lockout/Colombiana. But even though it’s about a Secret Service agent, it sounds like it won’t tread on C-Tates’ White House Down or its Gerard Butler knockoff. Here’s the synopsis:

The project, according to the companies, “explores a story about Secret Service agent Ethan Runner, who discovers he’s dying and decides to retire in order to reconnect with his estranged family. But when the Secret Service offers him access to an experimental drug that could save his life in exchange for one last assignment, he soon finds himself trying to juggle his family, his mission and the drug’s hallucinatory side effects.” [THR]

Is Maggie Grace going to be in it? Maggie Grace is always inexplicably present in Luc Besson films. Anyway I hope to God “Ethan Runner” is a parkour expert. “My name is Ethan F. Runner, and if it’s money you’re after, I can tell you that I have none. What I do have, is a particular set of skills gained over a lifetime of free running.”

Our buddy Jay Chandrasekhar of Broken Lizard is directing Yogi Bear 2. Is it because he’s Indian? Come on, Yogi isn’t even a real Yogi. That’s racist. Anyway, Warner Bros hired Chandrasekhar to rewrite and direct the sequel to Eric Brevig’s 2010 3D classic about a hungry bear that wears ties. Said a WB spokesperson: “In making a sequel to Yogi Bear, we really wanted to make sure to crush as many souls as possible, the more once-promising the better.” Okay, not really. Whatever, hopefully this was a compromise that brings us one step closer to that Super Troopers sequel. As my grandpa once said, “Errybody gotta make dat papa stack.” [Deadline]

Here’s a new clip from Red Dawn!

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After the jump, you can watch the trailer for McG’s This Means War, starring Tom Hardy and Chris Pine as two CIA super spies who are best of friends until one day, (*RECORD SCRATCH*) they realize they’re both dating Reese Witherspoon (*SAD TROMBONE*). Then they tear the city apart in high-octane, cutesy gun battles over her. (Because that’s totally what dudes do! Men be fightin’ over women be shoppin’ LOL!). And as an ADDED BONUS, Chelsea Handler plays Reese’s saucy, slutty best friend, Sassy Snarkington. SWEET MERCIFUL JESUS, WHAT GOD DID I PLEASE??

How are you still reading this? WATCH THIS MASTERPIECE LIKE YESTERDAY.

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Battleship (with its rumored $200 million budget) doesn’t open for almost another year (May 2012), and already the other BOARD GAME ADAPTATIONS (I still can’t f*cking believe I’m typing that phrase) are dropping like flies. Three weeks ago, Universal dropped its plan to remake/adapt Clue, and now they’ve dropped the Ouija board movie set to be produced by Michael Bay and directed by McG. Why, it’s almost as if someone at Universal actually heard the words “an Ouija board movie directed by McG.”

The project had been set up at the studio since 2008, when Universal signed a rather aggressive deal with the world’s second-largest toymaker to develop Hasbro and Milton Bradley properties like Candy Land, Stretch Armstrong, Battleship, and Ouija into film titles. Most recently, screenwriter Simon Kinberg (Sherlock Holmes) had taken a pass at the Ouija script under the supervision of McG, who envisioned it as a big-budget Jumanji-like family fantasy, but apparently to no avail.

So strange that they wouldn’t want it. I mean, what better purpose could movies serve than to resurrect dead children’s toys? “This summer, from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan… POGS… in 3D!”

Insiders say that Bay and McG are taking meetings with other studios next week to drum up interest. (Paramount Pictures, with whom producer Bay has an obvious longstanding relationship from directing Hasbro’s Transformers franchise, is said to have passed on taking over the project.)

Assuming it ever does get made (it won’t), I can’t wait for the inevitable Entertainment Weekly cover story about what heroes McG and Michael Bay are for putting aside greed to make the two-hour toy commercial they always believed in.
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*puts finger tips on Ouija Board planchette*

Oh spirits of the deep, dark void… I beckon you! Tell me, ghosts of another world, does Hollywood have anything mind-numbingly retarded in the works this week?

Evan Spiliotopoulos, best known for penning a slew of high-profile, straight-to-DVD Disney animated pics, has been tapped to work on Ouija for Universal and Michael Bay’s production banner Platinum Dunes.

McG is directing the movie, which is an adaptation of the Hasbro board game about conjuring up spirits of the dead. (Via The Hollywood Reporter)

That’s right, folks – a Ouija Board movie being produced by Michael Bay and directed by McG, who is a grown adult and still goes by a childhood nickname. Even better, the new writer with the really long name is the guy who brought us such classics as The Lion King 1 ½, Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie, and Wanted 2, which will probably never happen because Angeline Jolie thinks it’s stupid. Even better, Spiliotopoulos is working on the script that was originally written by the guys who wrote Tron: Legacy, and they’ve already washed their hands of this awful idea.

As for the brain trust behind Ouija, I’m assuming the following conversation took place…

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In the build-up to Terminator Salvation, McG was saying all the right things (actual quote: “It’s going to knock your f*ckin balls up your ass”).  He acknowledged that most people probably thought of him as the Charlie’s Angels guy, and the self-awareness he demonstrated almost had us believing that he was more than a one-named douche who used to direct Korn videos.  At least, until we actually saw the movie.  Fast-forward to today, and he’s through pretending to be more than a paycheck director.  A 90-minute commercial for a board game?  Long as the check clears, homey.

McG is the choice to direct Ouija, the Universal Pictures supernatural action adventure that will follow Battleship as the next Hasbro branded property to move into production. Scripted by Tron: Legacy writers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, the film is being produced by Hasbro’s Brian Goldner and Bennett Schneir along with Platinum Dunes partners Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form. Production will begin by the summer, for release November 12, 2012. McG’s about to begin negotiations.

The big-scale movie has had directors circling it since October, after Universal  moved back the Rob Letterman-directed Taylor Lautner-attached Stretch Armstrong‘s start date, making Ouija the next Hasbro pic to follow Battleship, which opens May 18, 2012.

McG is in post-production on the Fox comedy This Means War, which stars Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine. |Deadline|

That’s right, Hollywood has doubled down on board game movies, all based on the idea that because Transformers was a hit, and it was based on a toy, than why not other toy movies?  Fool proof logic!!  QUICK, GET ME A SCRIPT FOR ‘TOASTER’, THE NAME RECOGNITION IS OFF THE CHARTS!  It’s sad that it’ll just be the companies’ stock prices that take the hit, because everyone named in this story deserves to lose a million dollars each.