There’s a Battleship movie on the horizon, a film based on the game Risk on its way, Cluedo has already been made into a glorious film, and when we wrote up the news that Ridley Scott was working with Hasbro to bring about a big screen version of the game Monopoly there was a due sense of disbelief.

Scott is making waves at the moment with his 3D Alien prequels, but he is still looking ahead to rolling the dice as the studios look to make money on the familiarity of the board game brands.

Unlike the movie adaptation of Cluedo, released under its American name Clue, Monopoly has a shoe, a top hat and a dog joining Uncle Moneybags as only potential characters, so Scott, and the script (to be written by Pamela Pettler, who previous work includes Monster House, Corpse Bride and 9)  will understandably be looking at the bigger world and what Scott is working on now is how to fit the concept and iconography of the board game within it.

Kicking off the press tour for his Russell Crowe starring Robin Hood ComingSoon spoke to the director about the initial work on the project, here’s what came of the conversation,

It’s a Hasbro film and they have the game. That was a tough thing to crack in terms of the screenplay because first off, many would want to integrate literally the shaking of the dice and the throwing of the dice into the board. I couldn’t really get past that. I wanted to just make a movie about the idea of greed. I told them you know your game can turn your sweetest, dearest aunt into a demon – a nightmare of greed. So that’s what we’re going to do…It’s [going to be] a comedy.

It’s a certainty that Scott knows far more about movie making than Hasbro, so in order for the film to succeed Scott will need to be given as free a rein as possible. This won’t be the last board game movie, but if Scott has his way then it may well be one of the best.

I’ve come across some concept art made by concept illustrator Stephan Martiniere back in 2006 for the proposed Looking Glass Wars movie which looks pretty cool. Although these are from a few years back, Stephan has them filed under “Live Action Feature Films” on his official website. The designs look extremely similar to characters from the early ’90s Sunday morning cartoon King Arthur and The Knights of Justice, which Martiniere worked on as a character designer. The Looking Glass Wars is a trilogy of novels (also the title of the first in the series) written by former skier turned filmmaker/actor Frank Beddor, and is basically an action heavy re-imagining of Lewis Carroll’s classic novels Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass. The proposed film is being produced by Charles Roven (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) and is one of numerous fantasy films he has lined up, including the Warcraft and God of War movies. However, I believe that for this production to move forward Tim Burton’s unrelated re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland will have to first be a success at the box office.

Check out the artwork. Characters are named Club, Diamond, Heart, Spade, and of course, Alyss.

Thanks to /Film for the tip.

I know. It seems the world has gone franchise crazy. Eager to ride out the recession on a surging tidal wave of box offices dosh it is the studios looking for the familiar to bring about their survival,  and the dual strands of this are linked by Ridley Scott.

Not only is he looking back to the future with his Alien prequel film, thereby revisiting a previously established universe and all its nostalgic trappings, but also it seems that Hollywood is keen to capitalise on any franchise or brand that is known by more than four people – Facebook is attracting the talents of David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin and now the LA Times tell us how Sir Ridley got involved with Monopoly.

Talking with the writer of the proposed Monopolmovie Frank Beddor, the LA Times trace how the spark ignited the interest of the game’s manufacturers Hasbro and Scott himsef. It all began with a dark take on Alice in Wonderland…

Beddor said his inspiration came from Carroll and the “Looking Glass Wars” experience: “They have this big world and this game — it’s the most famous board game in the world — and it just really came out of the whole ‘Alice’ thing. I took the approach of thinking of the main character falling down a rabbit hole and into a real place called Monopoly City … It was the re-engineering of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ that got me thinking and then with this it came around full circle and I was able to utilize that. That’s a big world. They were searching for that.

It’s a fascinating read and the Jumanji parallels the Times draw are easy to see – and the film actually comes out of the article looking quite plausible.

“…it can’t be just about the money. To me it’s more a metaphor for life, the taking of chances and this character through this process learns that he can do a lot of things. He’s completely brave and strategic and risk-taking while playing this game but in real life he’s a mess. He won’t roll the dice. That’s the character and journey he has to take.”

With Scott on board (absolutely no pun intended) perhaps this odd outing for Monopoly may just be a winner. Eyes peeled, ear to the ground as always, we’l bring you more as we find it.