Universal signed an exclusive six-year, four-picture deal with Hasbro today, but with a G.I. Joe movie and a Transformers sequel already in the works, what other Hasbro toys are they going to make into feature films? Here are our Ten Suggestions:
10. Battleship
Starring: Clive Owen as Admiral Somerville, Liam Neeson as Admiral Donitz
Opposing British and German admirals take turns firing torpedos at very specific locations where they believe the other’s ships to be located. While attempting to fire shots in the pattern of a penis, the British admiral stumbles upon the German cruiser, and quickly triumphs after realizing that the German boats are arranged to spell “HI”.
9. Mouse Trap
Starring: Christopher Lee as the Ratcatcher, Andy Serkis as the Mouse, Sean Astin as the Green Man
A stirring special effects masterpiece directed by Peter Jackson in which a CGI’d, motion-captured mouse must escape the elaborate machine concocted by Christopher Lee, a diabolical scientist who doesn’t really know any rules but loves playing with the trap he took forever to build. The movie is three hours long because the green man and the net keep not working, but after the mouse escapes very easily, the villain just says f*ck it and uses the trap on his M.U.S.C.L.E. Men.
8. Lite Brite
Starring: Peter Sarsgaard as Doug Trenton, Jessica Biel as Fragment, Jon Favreau as the Friend He Finally Explains The Secret To
A romantic comedy in which a lovelorn widower stumbles upon a magical toy that makes anything he creates in colorful, electronic fragments come to life. He then immediately falls in love with a really pixelated ballerina, but she leaves him when she walks in on him creating another woman on the Lite Brite (and a palm tree too, for some reason). It turns out, the woman he was creating was a wedding planner, and the two tearfully reconcile with the man dramatically wishing his beloved “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” as best he can with all the curved letters.
7. Battle Beasts
Starring: Casey Affleck as Cpl. Richardson, Tim Roth as Panther, Harold Perrineau as Frog, Gerard Butler as Octopus
A fantasy action-adventure movie that follows a stranded Army paratrooper into a secret African underworld ruled by various upright-standing animals with stickers in the middle of their chests. After befriending Eyepatch Panther and Medieval Frog, the trooper leads a revolt against the Octopus Tyrant, but both creatures are uneventfully defeated when it turns out they’re Wood and the Octopus is Fire. The rest of the Beasts decide that it’s complete BS that the Octopus is Fire, so one of the Water ones ends up killing him anyway.
6. Magic: The Gathering
Starring: The Rock as Force of Nature, Gary Oldman as the voice of Lord of the Pit, Anthony Hopkins as the Check-Collecting Sorcerer, Marlon Wayans as Incredulous Sidekick
A fantasy epic in which two opposing wizards harness the power from turning islands and mountains sideways in order to summon monsters to attack each other, before ultimately abandoning their craft and denying ever having taken part in it after they reach college. Marlon Wayans guest stars as the studio-mandated audience aide who yells “what the hell is that??” any time anything happens.
5. Spirograph
Starring: Luke Wilson as Spirograph, Owen Wilson as Jenga, John Ratzenberger as Electric Football Board
A “Toy Story”-esque 3D animated pic about an unopened Spirograph who befriends an unopened Jenga game and an old Electric Football table in the back corner of a kid’s cluttered closet. The screen is pitch black for 95% of the movie until a futuristic super-race uncovers the three lost artifacts, opens them, attempts to play with them for three minutes, then immediately returns them to the closet. The DVD includes a deleted scene where the kid’s mom attempts to re-gift the Spirograph, but has second thoughts.
4. Risk
Starring: Ray Winstone as Yellow General, Ian McKellen as Red General, Jake Gyllenhaal as the Young Blue General Who Keeps Asking What The Cards Are For Again
Loosely based on historical accounts, “Risk” is the story of the pivotal World War I battles over Ukraine, Greenland, and the northeast corner of Asia, before every world power was cheaply overrun by the dude who just guarded Australia, saved up armies for three hours, and couldn’t stop rolling goddamn sixes.
3. Play-Doh
Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar as the Mom, Freddie Highmore as the Kid, Thomas Hayden Church as the Neighbor Who Gets Killed
A loose remake of 80s sci-fi horror “The Stuff“, “Play-Doh” involves a mysterious, seemingly harmless alien substance that attempts to multiply by tricking curious children into eating it so it can eventually take over the world. Its plan is foiled when kids keep leaving it on the table without the lid on and it all just dries out.
2. Candyland
Starring: Diane Lane as Queen Frostine, James Cromwell as King Kandy, Ryan Gosling as Mr. Mint, Cillian Murphy as Plumpy
A gritty, existential crime drama about the mysterious Plumpy, an entity which kidnaps children with no motive or discretion and ranomly drops them off in the middle of nowhere. The baffled king and queen hire a local lumberjack to track down Plumpy, but, unable to grasp a society capable of producing an abductor with such random, remorseless villainy, the lumberjack ultimately hangs himself with a licorice rope.
1. Monopoly
Starring: Hal Holbrook as Hat, Liev Schrieber as Car, Matt Damon as Thimble, Giovanni Rubissi as Shoe, no one as Wheelbarrow
An epic, six-hour movie about several common objects and their swearing-filled real estate transactions. Things turn sour when Hat, having blown his off-the-books Free Parking windfall on booze, is ashamedly unable to pay the $850 to stay in three houses on Marvin Gardens, and agrees to turn over Park Place to the villanous, Broadway-owning Car. Thimble and Shoe immediately quit the game despite Car telling them “you can’t quit now!”, but they sarcastically congratulate him on his victory.
Other toy or casting suggestions? Throw them in the comments!
