Thursday, 10 December 2009

Monopoly movie directed by Ridley Scott

Monopoly FilmHasbro and Universal Pictures are planning a movie based on the famous board game Monopoly!You have to admit that you didn't see that one coming! Well, the project is actually already under works: it has been announced that Director Ridley Scott would helm the film based on a script written by Pamela Pettler with the story developed by Frank Beddor (I suppose it means that Pettler and Beddor works together to hone the screenplay).

Producer Frank Beddor gave some plot details of this Monopoly movie during an interview with the LA Times:

Frank Beddor

"I created a comedic, lovable loser who lives in Manhattan and works at a real estate company and he’s not very good at his job but he’s great at playing Monopoly. And the world record for playing is 70 straight days – over 1,600 hours – and he wanted to try to convince his friends to help him break that world record. They think he is crazy. They kid him about this girl and they're playing the game and there’s this big fight. And he’s holding a Chance card and after they’ve left he says, ‘Damn, I wanted to use that Chance card,’ and he throws it down. He falls asleep and then he wakes up in the morning and he’s holding the Chance card, and he thinks, ‘That’s odd.

He’s all groggy and he goes down to buy some coffee and he reaches into his pocket and all he has is Monopoly money. All this Monopoly money pours out. He’s confused and embarrassed and the girl reaches across the counter and says, ‘That’s OK.’ And she gives him change in Monopoly money. He walks outside and he’s in this very vibrant place, Monopoly City, and he’s just come out of a Chance Shop. As it goes on, he takes on the evil Parker Brothers in the game of Monopoly. He has to defeat them. It tries to incorporate all the iconic imageries -- a sports car pulls up, there's someone on a horse, someone pushing a wheelbarrow -- and rich Uncle Pennybags, you're going to see him as the maĆ®tre d' at the restaurant and he's the buggy driver and the local eccentric and the doorman at the opera. There's all these sight gags."
Producer Frank Beddor


I'm not much impressed by the plot they come up with... It just sounds like a mash up of ideas borrowed from other movies (like Bedtime Stories, Jumanji and others...) But well kind of hard to adapt the monopoly boardgame into a movie, so we can forgive them... And who knows they may still manage to surprise us with this Monopoly movie. After all there must be a compelling reason, aside from monopoly notes, to push a talented and experienced director like Ridley Scott to get on board.
:)