In news that the world met with a resigned “Why the fuck not? This might as well happen,” Hasbro announced that Hungry Hungry Hippos and Action Man were being adapted, twisted, and just generally warped and mangled in order to become works resembling movies. Producer Mark Emmett conveyed that he would like to spend less than $100 million on the story of four plastic hippos that eat marbles.

That last sentence ought to demonstrate just how far we as a people have backslid. None of us deserve to live. Not even our grandparents. ESPECIALLY not our grandparents. They had every opportunity to stop this from happening.

Though the plot is not divulged (and possibly doesn’t exist, nor ever will), I’m hoping for an origin story. WHY are these hippos so hungry? What motivates them? The American dream? Will they get disillusioned? Are there Willy Loman parallels here?

The answer to all those questions and more is:

“Ugh.”

We took the time to comb through these new offerings, and pulled out our favorites. And by the look of things, we won’t encounter any vitamin D for at least three months.

The Hunger Games

Based on the addictive book series, teenagers fight one another and their hormoes in a televised battle to the death. (March 23rd)

The Raid: Redemption

45

An elite SWAT team enter the fight of their lives when trapped in a fifteen-story apartment building overflowing with rapists, murderers, thieves, and loiterers. Billed as “the greatest action movie in years.” I assume they’re referring to every movie since Con-Air. (March 23rd)

Goon

Seann William Scott stars as a bouncer turned ice enforcerer when his talent for breaking faces lands him a spot on his hometown hockey team. (March 30th)

Wrath of the Titans

I know that I shouldn’t be excited after Clash of the Titans. But they promise this time things will be different. They promise and there’s a giant lava monster. (March 30th)

Life Happens

The spring’s only non-violent film comes from Breaking Bad’s Krysten Ritter. She stars alongside Kate Bosworth and Rachel Bilson as a party girl trying to get back into the dating game after squeezing out a kid. (March 30th)

Iron Sky

Space Nazis from the moon. (April 4th)

American Reunion

The gang from American Pie is back to examine how life changes when they stick their penises in a variety of places. (April 6th)

Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope

This documentary from director Morgan Spurlock and producer Joss Whedon offers a view of the geek mecca that is Comic-Con through the eyes of four very different super-fans. Perfect for those who want in on the fun, but don’t want to wear a Wookiee costume in the San Diego heat. (April 6th)

ATM

Two dweebs and Alice Eve are trapped overnight in an ATM vestibule by a hooded killer. Make your own judgements from the trailer. And know that I would watch this even if it was Alice Eve using an ATM incident-free for two hours. (April 6th)

Detention

What looks at first to be a quirky, teen rom-com quickly goes off the rails when an axe-killer, a flying saucer, and poorly-timed Heath Ledger jokes suddenly appear. (April 6th)

The Cabin in the Woods

Best Spring Ever for Whedonites continues when The Cabin in the Woods finally escapes from MGM’s vaults. By all accounts, it’s a movie that you just need to shut up and go see. Then shut up again as to not ruin the fun for anyone else. (April 13th)

Bad Ass

Coasting on the audiences built for films like Machete and Hobo With a Shotgun, Danny Trejo stars in this film based upon the Internet phenomenon, “Epic Beard Man.” Also stars Charles S. Dutton, Ron Pearlman, and green screen explosions. (April 13th)

Lockout

When the President’s daughter is held captive during an outer space prison riot, Guy Pearce is the one man extemely sarcastic enough to save her. (April 20th)

Chimpanzee

This documentary follows a young chimpanzee separated from his tribe and adopted by a fully grown male (Andy Serkis). (April 20th)

The Avengers

A mixed bag of Marvel movies have lead up to them — the first superhero team up film, The Avengers. Judging by the trailer, it’s going to be totally awesome even if it makes zero sense. (May 4th)

The Dictator

Sacha Baron Cohen finds yet another way to offend the Middle East. (May 11th)

God Bless America

Bobcat Goldthwait goes behind the camera again with this film about a man who travels the country after being diagnosed with a terminal disease. Oh yeah, he also viciously kills every a-hole he encounters along the way. (May 11th)

Battleship

You’re not curious? You’ve gotta be curious. (May 18th)

Moonrise Kingdom

So many wonderful things in one place. I love this movie without having even seen it, and it makes me love his other films all the more. (May 25th)

In 2008, the studio signed a contract with Hasbro to develop films based on Clue, Stretch Armstrong, Battleship, Candy Land, and a few others. Only Battleship was made by Universal, as Relativity picked up Stretch, and Sony is inflicting an Adam Sandler Candy Land on us.

It’s nice to see that Universal is actually saying “no” to licensing established brands as films, but it’s a pity, because that money could have been used to finance a good movie, rather than not financing bad ones.

The bitch of it is that these crappy movies are still getting made through other studios. There is no upside here, other than the small solace we get from knowing that one studio rejected some cheap projects that others were quick to jump on. Small victory? (CinemaBlend)

The premises vary wildly from predictable to far-fetched, as do the phases of development in which these projects reside. What remains constant between them, though, is their desire to mine your hearts and dollars by tunneling their way into the nostalgia center of your brain, holding up a sign that says, “Remember us? We exist in film form now! Give us your money!”

Battleship

What You Think It Would Be: Fleets of anonymous gray ships that slowly, methodically fire torpedoes at one another until one side has been destroyed. One would intuit that this big-screen adaptation would entail peeking at the other fleet’s location while their general is in the bathroom. Also, one would expect, if not demand, that Bill Paxton play some generically gruff Captain.

What It Will Be: One of those “inspired by” premises that actually has very little to with the board game, save for the fact that there exists a collection of ships that will ostensibly do battle. The film will be directed by no less than Peter Berg (The Kingdom Friday Night Lights, Hancock, and The Rundown), and will star Taylor Kitsch, Rihanna, Liam Neeson, and Brooklyn Decker.

I had no idea that those battleships I’ve been sinking were full of such hot women.

Ouija Board

What You Think It Would Be: You have no idea how to transform this party gag into a film. Maybe something to do with some mystics who use the powers of gullibility to convince you that your dead aun buried a fortune in your parents’ backyard?

What It Will Be: Apparently, neither do McG or Universal. After tossing out the first draft from the Tron: Legacy scribes, the film is now in the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Smith scribe Simon Kinberg. Universal passed on the project, opting to pay a $5 million fee rather than go forward. But director/crazy person McG won’t take “razor-thin plot” for an answer, peddling the concept to other studios. (In my mind, he’s taking meetings and pitching by dumping a bag of Ouija-related stuff on the development execs’ desks, shouting, then pleading, “Come on.”

As of press time, Paramount has also passed, leaving McG and his bag of Ouija-related items with no home.

In her feature debut, Rihanna will be playing a hot army girl that fires giant guns. That’s not what IMDB says, but there can be two right answers to some questions. Here’s the pic, which also answers the age old question, “Which pop star can breath life into the thinnest of premises and make me forget that this is a $200 million film starring Taylor Kitsch based on a board game?” (*Answer at the bottom of the post)

*Answer: Rihanna

7 photosBrooklyn Decker

Of course, it could be an all-out cheesefest that doesn’t strike the right balance of bullshit to awesome in the same way that Battle: Los Angeles did. But for right now, I’m gleefully optimistic that this movie is going to kick ass in a dumb fun kind of way. Unless, of course, Liam Neeson speaks the line, “They sank my battleship!” In which case, laaaaame.

He stopped short of predicting it would be a nightmarish mash-up of special effects and thin plots, ’cause, you know, glass houses and whatnot, but he does go on about how Hollywood puts too much of a premium on established brands and not enough on creating new ones. He seems to (consciously or not) overlook the fact that respected helmer Peter Berg is running the Battleship circus, which throws a little more credibility behind the production of a big-budget feature based on a simplistic board game. (The fact that Rihanna and Brooklyn Decker are also on board is another story altogether.) His words may have had more gravity if he had cited a Michael Bay movie, but Transformers movies only come out every nine months or so, and Cameron didn’t want to wait that long to let his feelings be known.

Cameron summed up his point nicely, saying, “They want to make the Battleship game into a film… This is pure desperation.” Says the gentleman whose next two projects are Avatar 2 and Avatar 3.

Left: Gareth Edwards - Right: Beelzebub

Good news for people who love terrifying monsters: McG is back. Oh, and so is Monsters director Gareth Edwards.

McG is set to direct Ouija, a film based on the supernatural-themed board game produced by Hasbro. If you think that’s a stupid idea, don’t mention it to Universal Pictures. It’s the studio’s second boardgame-based production, with Battleship already well under way.

If that’s not your style, perhaps Gareth Edwards can interest you in a reboot of the Godzilla franchise. The director is reportedly on board to write and direct the project for Warner Bros.

While these projects might not be the most original in the world, they do allow me to point out that Hollywood is all out of ideas, which marks the 214th time I’ve done so since I began working for ScreenJunkies back in June of 2009. That fact might make it seem like I’m not very original, myself. But as the rapper once said, don’t hate the player, hate the game…the game of Ouija. (Source: Latino Review 1 and 2)

^{"You do not sink Liam Neeson’s Battleship."}

Liam Neeson may have missed out at the chance to play Abraham Lincoln, but he will be DAMNED if he misses the opportunity to work with Rihanna. Zeus has signed on to play an Admiral in Peter Berg‘s cuckoo-bananas film adaptation of the Hasbro board game.

More specifically, Neeson will play Admiral Shane, the father to Brooklyn Decker‘s character and future father-in-law to Taylor Kitsch (if you care about the soap opera aspects of Battleship). No word yet if the film will feature any Krakken releasing. (Deadline)

^{"That dog musta been sick."}

Here’s the first look from Peter Berg‘s perplexing Battleship adaptation of Rihanna dressed like one of those guys that hang out at the mall trying to recruit poor people into combat. I still find it really odd that she joined the cast, which includes Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, and Alexander Skarsgard. Then again, I find it really odd this movie is being made. But what strikes me as most odd is this thing standing next to Rihanna. Didn’t E.T. dress up as that once?

(via Movieline)

This comes from a gossip site, so take it for what it’s worth, but Brad Pitt is supposedly in talks to star in a film adaptation of the groundbreaking videogame, Red Dead Redemption.

Published by Rockstar Games, the same company behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise, RDR tells the story of John Marston, a former outlaw who can’t escape his past during the final days of the Old West. Supposedly, Pitt has been given the right of first refusal for the Marston role.

Hopefully this rumor turns out to be true. Hollywood is already putting money behind crap like Battleship, so why not develop a film around Red Dead. The game has a solid plot and more interesting characters than half the films I’ve seen this year, so the heavy lifting is done. And if it works out, maybe someone will finally make a movie based on my favorite videogame of all time, Avoid the Noid. (Cinemablend)

The news that there is a film in the works based upon the board game Battleship is a crazy enough notion. So, why am I still surprised by the casting news? We’ve already reported that Rihanna had joined the cast, because there was apparantly a Rihanna-like character intrinsic to the storyline. Now it has been announced that swimsuit model and Transformers 3 hopeful Brooklyn Decker will play Taylor Kitsch‘s love interest in the film. I mean, movie. I mean, commercial. I mean, Peter Berg‘s excuse to party with Rihanna and Brooklyn Decker. (Deadline)

_{I smell Oscar!}

If you’re already making a movie out of a grid-based board game, and you’ve already decided to add an extraterrestrial element for no apparent reason, why in the hell wouldn’t you throw a popular female R’n'B singer into the mix?

Empire Online is reporting that Rihanna will make her feature film debut in Peter Berg‘s Battleship. The singer will join Alexander Skarsgard and Taylor Kitsch who have already signed on to the project, for some reason.

Not to be outdone, Rihanna’s ex-boyfriend, singer Chris Brown, has announced plans to star in an off-Broadway production of Connect Four: The Musical. Will it prove as successful? Only time will tell.

_{Dead in the water.}

"True Blood" star Alexander Skarsgard is on board for the upcoming Universal film, Battleship. Skarsgard joins Taylor Kitsch in the adaptation of the iconic strategy game.

To many, making a movie about a nautical-themed board game might seem a tad stupid. But for all you skeptics, there’s one thing you should know. An "alien invasion" element has been added to the plot.

Wow. It’s beyond mockery. Congrats, Universal. You sunk my sarcasm. (Coming Soon)

It looks like an actor has willingly signed on to play the lead in Battleship, a Peter Berg joint. Taylor Kitsch, who you probably know from Friday Night Lights or X-Men Origins: Wolverine or John Carter of Mars (if you’re behind on your RSS feed and just now reading this in 2012), is now attached to play Alex Hopper, the Commanding Officer of a destroyer who goes toe-to-toe with alien invaders on the high seas.

Jeremy Renner was originally in talks for the role but had to drop out when he realized the movie was based on a board game. I’d like to stay optimistic about this until I see a trailer, but I will go on record and let it be known that I’ll be very disappointed if a Slinky doesn’t burst from a crewmember’s chest during a galley scene. (THR)

Jeremy Renner is undoubtedly on many a casting wishlist thanks to his Oscar-nominated performance in The Hurt Locker. But that doesn’t mean you have to take every role Jeremy.

The actor has confirmed he will take a role in James McTiegue’s The Raven, a movie that centers on the final days of Edgar Allan Poe as he hunts for a serial killer inspired by his stories. I don’t remember that from high school English. Appears that Ms. Fitzgerald was asleep at the wheel.

But the really distressing news is that he’s considering the lead role in Peter Berg‘s Milton Bradley-adaptation Battleship. He’s interested in the role but needs to decide if he would rather take a super-secret role for which he’s had five meetings. Trust me, Jeremy. Whatever the other role is, you want to take it over board game sailor fighting aliens. Don’t throw away your Oscar goodwill before you even win it. And make sure to use hand sanitizer after contact with Mickey Rourke. It’s the only way to prevent the spread of career suicide. (NY Times)

Peter Berg invited a few reporters to spend the day on the USS Sterett so that he could discuss his upcoming board game adaptation, Battleship. Eyes have been rolling since the film was announced, but matters were made worse when it was reported that aliens would play the film’s heavies. Berg defended this decision and elaborated on what to expect from the sea-faring visitors.

• The aliens are known as The Regents. They will be brought to the screen with a mixture of CG and live action.
• They aren’t looking to take over Earth. They are looking to build a power source in the ocean so that they can return to their home world.
• The alien weaponry will not be futuristic lasers. It will be exploding ballistics-based, just like ours.
• Someone at some point in the film will exclaim, "You sank my Battleship!"

So there you have it. No word on casting yet but Berg seems very clear about the movie he wants to make. It’s a movie based on a board game. Looks like it’s time to dust off my adaptation of Ants In The Pants. It’s a mystery/thriller about these ants that get into some guy’s pants. (Latino Review)