On the Battlefield of the Soul, We’ve All Lost
The newspapers carry the sad news today that Hasbro has acquired the film rights to world-domination boardgame Risk. Furthermore, it’s not just Risk: films are already in development based on Monopoly, Cluedo (known as Clue in North America) and, if you can believe it, Battleship. Ridley “Blade Runner” Scott is being touted as a possible director of the Monopoly film, and has been quoted as saying that a Monopoly Movie would be “hysterically amusing”.
He may be right, but perhaps not in the way he intended. Here are Stephen Colbert and Jeff Golblum “auditioning” for the Battleship movie:
The problem is that there’s no narrative in most of these games, the exception probably being Clue/Cluedo. Clue/Cluedo has at least the potential to work as a narrative, but only because its format is based on a narrative genre: the 1930’s country house murder. OK, that’s a literary genre first, but also exists as a film genre. In fact, Clue/Cluedo has already been made into a movie once , directed by Jonathan Lynn of “Yes Minister” fame and starring Tim Curry. It’s played for laughs and it’s actually rather good.
But what can we expect from a movie based on Risk, for goodness sake? This? Probably not…
There’s no dramatic story arc in a boardgame. Videogames ought to be easier to adapt, but Hollywood has had years of failing to deliver a decent film based on a videogame. Boardgames are much harder to turn into a satisfying narrative - unless you don’t even try, and instead make a genre movie and just slap the name of the boadgame on top of it. In the case of Risk, you can imagine an epic war film, maybe, with a load of enormous CGI battle scenes, Lord Of The Rings style, but there’s no artistic reason at all for an epic war film to be a Risk spin-off. Exactly the same holds true for Battleship. Expect a generic hunt-and-destroy submarine movie (though it would be great if they made a really good sub movie, of which there have been none for literally decades), but again, why not just make a really good submarine movie?
Well, there’s one obvious reason, of course. The movie will sell a few more tickets based on brand recognition from people who play (or used to play) whatever game it’s based on, and Hasbro will sell an enormous number of extra copies of Risk and Battleship. And you can’t blame game companies or film companies for trying to make money, because that’s what they’re for, but it’s hard to feel totally comfortable sitting in the cinema when it all looks so blatantly cynical.
The Monopoly film is going to raise a feeling of slight unease outside the US, because all the properties have different names in different territories. Fair enough if they stick to the American names, which they surely will - it’s an American film, and Monopoly is an American game, after all. But here in the UK we all know what Old Kent Road and Mayfair represent, and most people won’t know the difference between Boardwalk (which actually sounds a bit cheap and vulgar, doesn’t it?) and Mediterranean Avenue (which sounds kind of upmarket).
Having said all that, if there’s anyone from Sony or Paramount reading this who’s interested in the film rights for Army Of Zero - call us! (We suggest Kenneth Branagh for Lord Icclestone).
