Blogocentric Formulations

Movie Adaptations

As you're probably well aware at this point, movie adaptations are pretty popular. Whether from books (TWILIGHT, THE DA VINCI CODE), old television shows (S.W.A.T., the upcoming A-TEAM), comic books (X-MEN, SPIDER-MAN), toy franchises (TRANSFORMERS, G.I. JOE), or even theme park rides (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, THE HAUNTED MANSION), Hollywood is crazy about adaptations ... the reasoning being that these properties have a built-in audience that will, in theory, translate into built-in revenue.

But at what point does a property cease to be a good idea and start to be a pretty clear exploitation of any little sliver of audience recognition? I'd say when you start acquiring the rights to objects and things rather than stories.

I'll give them TRANSFORMERS. At least there's years and years of storylines they can pull from. Heck, I'll even give them THE HAUNTED MANSION, because there's a rough semblance of a narrative in the Disneyland ride. But that's where I draw the line. Here's a list of source material (I swear I'm not making these up) that Hollywood is legitimately trying to turn into feature motion pictures:

MONOPOLY BOARD GAME
BATTLESHIP BOARD GAME
RISK BOARD GAME
CANDYLAND BOARD GAME
E*TRADE BABY COMMERCIALS
STRETCH ARMSTRONG
OUIJA BOARD
VIEWMASTER

And, just announced today:

MAGIC 8 BALL

Now, I realize that part of a screenwriter's job is to figure out how to create a coherent story... but isn't it a bit of a stretch to spend what typically amounts to millions of dollars to secure the rights to these franchises, only to pay a screenwriter separately to actually write the script based on the property? Now you've already got seven figures against the project before a single frame has been shot. Is the pool of audience members itching to see a Magic 8 Ball movie really high enough to offset that expenditure in advance of any production elements?

Hollywood, to its credit, is just trying to figure out how to make movies people want to see. But at some point, you have to wonder if all the money and time spend securing these properties is worth it, when you can acquire an original screenplay for a fraction of the cost. As the box office has shown again and again ... there are no sure things. So if you're going to take a gamble either way, why not gamble with a good script and less money, rather than trying to figure out how to spend tens of millions of dollars bringing a movie based on the Viewmaster toy into the world.