There have been plenty of optioned films over the past few months that don’t make a lot of sense. Peter Berg will be directing a film based on Battleship, Michael Bay is producing Ouija, and Kevin Lima (Enchanted) is directing Candy Land. One other that has struck a “huh?” chord more than others is Ridley Scott’s directing of a movie based on the game Monopoly.
Scott, who is best known for directing such epic (and not family-oriented) films as Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator, was supposedly sold on the film during a pitch meeting with Universal and producer Frank Beddor (There’s Something About Mary). In an interview with the LA Times, Beddor goes into detail on the pitch that got Ridley Scott so interested.
“I created a comedic, lovable loser who lives in Manhattan and works at a real estate company and he’s not very good at his job but he’s great at playing Monopoly. And the world record for playing is 70 straight days – over 1,600 hours – and he wanted to try to convince his friends to help him break that world record.
They think he is crazy. They kid him about this girl and they’re playing the game and there’s this big fight. And he’s holding a Chance card and after they’ve left he says, ‘Damn, I wanted to use that Chance card,’ and he throws it down. He falls asleep and then he wakes up in the morning and he’s holding the Chance card, and he thinks, ‘That’s odd.’”
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