Back in the day, like many children, I owned a version of the game Battleship. Mine was especially awesome, as it was electronic and would make a big exploding noise whenever you hit the opposing side's ship. Truly, it was the greatest form of Battleship ever created, though it perhaps lacked some basic things that would work if one were to do a film adaptation, like a story, or characters.
That hasn't stopped Peter Berg, who is directing the film version of the board games. A grid and pegs with some plastic ships is now going to be translated into a spectacle involving aliens, star crossed lovers and even some battleships. I didn't see any grids in the trailer, and while the bombs used by aliens sort of look like pegs it's stretching it. You could call it "Explosions" or "Action Movie" and it'd make about as much sense as "Battleship." I would actually sooner go to something called "Explosions", at least it'd do what it says on the box.
Yet, there it is, coming soon to a theatre near you. It's not the only one either, there have been rumblings about other games getting similar adaptations. Ridley Scott has been attached to a film based on Monopoly, which will presumably be 5 hours long and end with everyone hating each other, and there are rumors of an Ouija board adaptation.
Clearly, we need to see every somewhat famous board game get adapted into a film, even if the film doesn't appear to have anything to do with the original product. The Game of Life could be a romantic comedy, Sorry easily adapted into a Jim Carrey vehicle in the vein of Liar Liar. Since Battleship has proven that actually having something to do with the original has really little to do with making a movie based on it, there's a world of possibility out there.
Take Tri-Bond, a board game that is about finding the links between three different things. It's not too much of a stretch to make it about, say, a serial killer, who keeps killing three people at a time. To catch him, our hero - let's go with Harrison Ford - has to figure out the connections, before it's too late! Perhaps something similar could be done with Trivial Pursuit, but that's more appropriate to an action comedy. An art thief - Daniel Craig perhaps - leaves clues to his next heist in the form of assorted trivia questions and possibly pie. Will Smith is on the case, with a thrilling climax involving figuring out which U.S. State boasts the confluence of the Woonasquatucket and Moshassuck rivers. That's some edge of your seat entertainment right there.
There's a world of possibility. Jenga could somehow become about a bomb threat, with the only way to defuse the bomb involving taking a block from the middle and putting it on top. Yes that doesn't strictly make sense, but it's not like it has to, especially in a world where Battleship is about aliens. Guess Who could be about finding a criminal through elimination, the plot of the film hinging on whether or not he has a mustache. Another possibility is making films based on original premises, like Inception, which grossed over $800 million. Compelling stories people talk about tend to have a longer life in theatres than films reliant entirely on a familiar name. But that's just crazy talk, it's better if we hitch our wagons to a thrilling adaptation of Operation.
