Universal Studios goes pop….

Updated on May 4, 2009 By Ken Begg 12 Comments

Weekly Variety for April 27 has a front page story about Universal going more mass market following a string of failures of their preferred ‘prestige’ movies. I’m not really convinced, since the films they cite are Changeling (largely lame reviews, a killer for a would-be art house movie), Frost/Nixon (really, who the hell cares anymore?), State of Play (newspapers are dying, why wouldn’t movies about newspapers do the same?), and Duplicity (I could even remember this movie, oh yeah, it was a Julia Roberts movie years past her expiration date, and again, middling reviews at best). I mean, Changeling might have bombed, but Gran Torrino did great, the best box office of any Clint Eastwood movie ever.

Anyway, Universal’s going with pop culture, and although many of the things they are optioning will never hit the screen, you still scratch your head at a lot of them. OK, if their upcoming Wolf Man movie does well-and it may, especially if it’s a good film–maybe Universal will finally get their twenty-plus year in the making Creature of the Black Lagoon flick going. Supposedly they are also looking at Frankenstein again. One suggestion: Learn as much as you can from your previous horrendous stab at this sort of thing, Van Helsing.

The rest of the stuff though…yeesh. Video game adapations (BioShock), TV shows (not only the upcoming Land of the Lost, but Sigmund and the Sea Monsters!!!!), comic books (Umbrella Academy–which actually could work), non-Bourne oriented Robert Ludlum novels (meh), and toys…

Oh, the toys. I don’t even remember the Astronaut Major Matt Mason doll, but they plan to make a movie about it. I considering this REALLY weird, except that Tom Hanks (!!!) is apparently thinking about starring in it.

Best, though, is Universal’s deal with Hasbro, home of Transformers and GI Joe. Universal, meanwhile, has scored the rights to even more awesome movie-potential fodders such as Monopoly, Candyland, Clue (again), Ouija, Battleship, Stretch Armstrong and Magic the Gathering.

Star buying that Universal stock now, folks.

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  • BT

    Movies based on video games are almost universally bad, but I think BioShock has a decent chance of spawning a watchable movie. Much of the pleasure derived from the game was from the art direction and the mood, 2 things which can be transferred much more easily than the “you are there” feeling one gets from first person shooters, but in almost all cases misses in movies adapted from those shooters.

    That being said, my guess is that the same argument could have been made about “Silent Hill”, and while I didn’t play the video game, the movie left me unmoved.

  • Speaking as a professional video game designer, I say that the odds of a good Bioshock movie are slim. Hollywood blows donkey balls even on converting something as image-oriented and simplistic as comic books to the film medium, and I have no faith in their power to do video games.

    They are far likelier to turn Bioshock into another “House of the DeaD” than to even reach the llevel of “Resident Evil”.

  • Ericb

    I played with a Major Matt Mason doll as a little kid but would have no interest in seeing a movie about it, I barely remember what he looked like. Since the toy has been out of circulation for almost 40 years I can’t imagine who they hope the audience for this movie would be.

  • Reed

    I am not a professional video game designer, and I still don’t think that they’ll make a good Bioshock movie. Last rumor I saw was that the guy who did the Pirates of the Caribbean movie was going to make it, so there is that. He turned in an enjoyable movie that had nothing to do with the Disney ride, maybe he’ll do the same. Personally, I loved the story in Bioshock. Truly loved it. It actually has great potential. The main problem is the lack of characters. They’ll have to write in a whole bunch of characters.

    While I did not really enjoy Silent Hill, I loved watching the “making of” parts of the DVD. They did a lot of things that I thought were CGI as practical effects. The body actors in the monster suits were particularly awesome, as was the big knife cutting through the door. That scene must have been very easy to act scared in.

  • BeckoningChasm

    I had a whole bunch of Matt Mason stuff as a kid, and I thought it was great. I even had the giant Martian guy and Callisto “from Jupiter–his transparent skull reveals the workings of his alien brain!” (A phrase I try to work in as often as possible.)

    As for what he looked like, well, he looked like Tom Hanks, believe it or not.

    As to a movie, no thanks, I’m long past that. So is everyone else. (Except Universal I guess.)

  • Plissken79

    Ken, Would You Kindly not attack the potential of Bioshock? The movie may well disappoint (as the game’s storyline, although incredibly well done, may be difficult to make into a film), but the game is one of the best in the last decade. Silent Hill had potential, but the decision to change the sex of the main character and make substantial changes from the original games’ storyline fatally weakened it.

    I actually liked Changeling (not a great film, however), but Frost/Nixon, while having some good performances, felt like flogging a long dead horse. Note to Hollywood liberals, Richard Nixon has been dead for 15 years, he has not been President for 35, get over his largely liberal administration (in domestic policy anyway).

    Watch Universal try and make another Fast and Furious film, given the ticket sales of the recent sequel.

  • John Nowak

    > and Callisto “from Jupiter–his transparent skull reveals the workings of his alien brain!” (A phrase I try to work in as often as possible.)

    And I do not blame you one little bit.

    My feelings are mixed. I longed for Major Matt Mason as a child — a hunger that was never to be satisfied.

    It’s a truly bizarre choice for a movie. Mason was basically a generic spaceman. Younger readers might be reminded of the 1980s “StarCom” toy line. I’m sure that a good team could make a quite compelling “near future” SF film based around the Mason toys [“Apollo 13, only it’s a moon base!”] but I can’t imagine it would be worth paying for the Mason trademark.

    It’s sort of like basing a movie on Marvel’s Werewolf by Night. He’s just a generic werewolf; why pay for a trademark nobody will recognize?

  • The Rev. D.D.

    I could see a good M:tG movie being made, considering the storylines they came up for it in their cards. Maybe an entertaining horror movie for Ouija. Everything else, not so much.

    RE: BioShock: Let’s face it, the history of the video game movie adaptation is very very poor. Maybe this’ll be the one that finally stands alongside Mortal Kombat, or even with Silent Hill (haven’t seen it but I’ve heard mixed reviews of it, which is more than most VGMAs get), but more than likely it’s going to be down in the pit with the rest of them. I’m sure we’d all be thrilled if we’re wrong on this, but the odds do not favor it at all.

  • Reed

    It just occurred to me what would make a great Bioshock movie – film the back story. This idea is so simple that other people probably thought of it the moment that they heard a movie was in the works, but I’m a little slower sometimes. The history that the protagonist encounters through the recordings in the game would be a very workable movie.

    Silent Hill seemed to suffer an odd fate; many people disliked it specifically because it didn’t follow the story line from a specific game. Instead they took elements from the games and wrote a new story line, and people didn’t like it. In my opinion the story in the movie is easily as good as the stories of Silent Hills 1 and 3, although I like 2 better. What I didn’t like about the movie was the ending. Up until that I was fine with it.

  • BeckoningChasm

    I agree about Silent Hill, the movie. I’ve never played the games, but I thought the movie was loaded with palpable dread and had some startling imagery.

    But toward the end I thought it just got way too sadistic.

  • I hope they will do a decent Bioshock. Heck, I rather enjoyed the Resident Evil versions. I just don’t have4 faith in Our Hollywood Connectino. WHICH “pirates of the caribbean” guy is going to make it? If you’re referring to Bruckheimer I rest my case.

  • Reed

    Ooh, maybe they’ll include a lot of scenes of people walking in slow motion away from collapsed tunnels with water pouring in behind them!