Board games are battling to be the next big thing at the cinemas. Battleship (as in you sunk my…) has signed Liam Neeson. Stretch Armstrong has Twilight’s Taylor Lautner attached, and now Ouija, based on the board game we’ve all used to freak out the gullible kids, is on the hunt for directors.
Deadline reports Universal’s top candidates for the “next hot directing job” are: Pierre Morel (Taken), Sylvain White (The Losers), and Scott Stewart (Priest). Based on these choices, one can assume Universal is shooting for a dark action thriller – involving a prop that stopped being scary in the seventh grade. But a hokey MacGuffin isn’t the picture’s only problem. It’s also got Michael Bay on board as a producer, along with Hasbro’s Brian Goldner and Bennett Schneir. So expect a real fidelity to the tone of the board game, I guess.
The flick aims to go into production next summer, with a plans to hit theaters by Thanksgiving of 2012, allowing a wide berth for the Peter Berg-helmed Battleship, which will be released on May 18, 2012.
The production budget on this board game gone awry movie will be upwards of $80 to $100 million, so the director is expected to be selected within the next two weeks so pre-production can begin in earnest.
Are you looking forward to movies based on board games?