It’s been rumoured for years, with Ridley Scott previously attached, but the Monopoly movie should finally go into production in 2015.
Andrew Niccol, best known for writing and directing the 1997 sci-fi film Gattaca, has been hired to write the script. It’s not yet known how much it will take from the original version worked on by Frank Beddor, the producer of There’s Something About Mary. That iteration of the script saw a Monopoly obsessive find his world transformed into the game.
The freshly announced movie will be a co-production between the game manufacturer Hasbro and Lionsgate, who called it “a film for all ages, visually sumptuous, heartwarming, and full of action and adventure”.
The vague plot details reveal that it will centre on a “a boy from Baltic Avenue [a square in the US version of Monopoly] who uses both Chance and Community in a quest to make his fortune, taking him on a fun, adventure-filled journey”. The film is “about making your own luck, what makes you truly rich and, of course, avoiding jail-time”.
After Niccol broke out with Gattaca, he became highly sought-after in Hollywood. While his script for The Truman Show might have been warmly received, the writer and director has struggled to find his niche ever since, with The Host, In Time and Good Kill all failing at the box office.
Monopoly will join other Hasbro movies such as the Transformers franchise, Battleship and last year’s Ouija. The studio’s upcoming slate includes another GI Joe sequel, Jem and the Holograms and a film based on the board game Hungry Hungry Hippos.
