Five Imaginary Movies About Your Favorite Childhood Games

February 28, 2010 9:50 AM

Five imaginary movies about your favorite childhood games. In reaction to Ridley Scott's Monopoly and Peter Berg's Battleship (each a real-life film in development), io9 posits about the as-yet-imaginary movies-to-come, once the "board game movie" craze takes off, of Darren Aronofsky's Pac-Man, J.J. Abrams' Candy Land, Werner Herzog's Tic-Tac-Toe, Paul Verhoeven's Snakes and Ladders, and Joss Whedon's POGs.

Unusually for a Gawker blog post, they bring a strong dose of the funny to this one.

posted by WCityMike (96 comments total)

I want to see all of these movies more than any actual movies.
posted by planet at 9:54 AM on February 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Let's see what Mrs. White has to say about this.
posted by roger ackroyd at 9:58 AM on February 28, 2010 [5 favorites]

Ah, you stole my thunder, roger ackroyd! I just popped in here to mention Clue.

What would be really fun is Choose Your Own Adventure movies.
posted by orange swan at 10:07 AM on February 28, 2010

Then on the other hand, there are real movies about imaginary games... such as Zathura and Jumanji.
posted by fairmettle at 10:08 AM on February 28, 2010

Robert Altman's Guess Who?
Alfred Hitchcock's Operation
Wes Anderson's Game of Life
Woody Allen's Sorry
Stanley Kubrick's Mousetrap
Nora Ephron's Girl Talk
posted by sallybrown at 10:09 AM on February 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

Kevin Smith's Hungry Hungry Hippos?

(I'm sorry)
posted by jonmc at 10:10 AM on February 28, 2010 [10 favorites]

I'm holding out for Sam Peckinpah's Hey Pa! There's a Goat on the Roof.
posted by grounded at 10:12 AM on February 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Richard Linklater's Pictionary
posted by brundlefly at 10:17 AM on February 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

What about Trivial Pursuit? Would they have to do that documentary style?
posted by orange swan at 10:18 AM on February 28, 2010

Takashi Miike's Operation
Lars von Trier's Hūsker Dū?
Michael Haneke's Sorry!
Alejandro Jodorowsky's Yahtzee
Gaspar Noé's Don't Wake Daddy
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:18 AM on February 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

David Lynch's Boggle.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:18 AM on February 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Roland Emmerich's Jenga
Michael Bay's Beer Pong
posted by brundlefly at 10:20 AM on February 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

Roman Polanski's Risk.
posted by tigrefacile at 10:21 AM on February 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

What about Trivial Pursuit? Would they have to do that documentary style?

Michael Moore's Trivial Pursuit: Moops...or Moors?
posted by sallybrown at 10:23 AM on February 28, 2010

Jerry Bruckheimer would make a hell an exciting Jenga movie.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 10:24 AM on February 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

plus a cameo performance by someone Uno.
posted by hal9k at 10:24 AM on February 28, 2010

I will take this opportunity to link to my pitch for a film version of UNO. (with some revisions).
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:26 AM on February 28, 2010

brundlefly - much better call on the Roland Emmerich Jenga.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 10:26 AM on February 28, 2010

What about director's wildly inappropriate for their choice of game?

Michael Bay's Go.
Sophia Coppola's Stratego.
Tyler Perry's Axis and Allies.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:31 AM on February 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

This is nonsense. Obviously, It's David Lynch's Snakes and Ladders.

I mean, duh.
posted by Elsa at 10:36 AM on February 28, 2010

(Admittedly, I'm cross about this whole article: I play this game while trying to get to sleep.

My favorite idea so far is the Saw-like intense gore thriller Operation, starring Cary Elwes as the masked maniacal would-be surgeon who traps people in a grubby abandoned warehouse and forces them to perform unnecessary, unanaesthetized surgeries upon each other in non-sterile conditions, and randomly jolts them with nonfatal but debilitating electric shocks.
posted by Elsa at 10:40 AM on February 28, 2010

Ridley Scott's Stratego

PT Anderson's Settlers of Cataan

Terrence Malick's Agricola

The Coen Brothers' Clue
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:42 AM on February 28, 2010

My favorite idea so far is the Saw-like intense gore thriller Operation

Watching that one gave me nightmares about somebody going after my Charley Horse for weeks....
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 10:46 AM on February 28, 2010

Minesweeper - The Movie
posted by Deflagro at 10:47 AM on February 28, 2010

They've already making a movie based on Crossfire, here's the trailer.
posted by hellojed at 10:48 AM on February 28, 2010

What about director's wildly inappropriate for their choice of game?

Roman Polanski's [Insert Title of Childhood Game Here]
posted by sallybrown at 10:49 AM on February 28, 2010

Don't forget David Lean's Bridge on the River Kwai<>/small>
posted by hippybear at 10:49 AM on February 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Jason Reitman's Cranium will be the darling of the indie circuit in '12
posted by pupdog at 10:52 AM on February 28, 2010

John Carpenter's Hangman.
posted by SPrintF at 10:52 AM on February 28, 2010

Oh, hell. There are 7 matches on IMDB for Hangman.
posted by SPrintF at 10:53 AM on February 28, 2010

Herschell Gordon Lewis' Operation?
posted by jonmc at 10:54 AM on February 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

David Cronenberg's Ants in the Pants
Pier Paolo Pasolini's Pass the Pigs
Catherine Breillat's Mystery Date
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:54 AM on February 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

Jason Reitman's Cranium will be the darling of the indie circuit in '12

It will be a financial failure; theatergoers will tire of leaving Cranium with their hands smelling like vomited poop.

I hate that purple clay, okay?
posted by sallybrown at 10:59 AM on February 28, 2010

Terry Gilliam's Candyland
Jan Svankmajer's Mousetrap
Wes Anderson's Go to the Head of the Class
Guillermo Del Toro's Snakes and Ladders
John Cassavetes' The Game of Life
David Cronenberg's Pretty, Pretty Princess
posted by griphus at 11:04 AM on February 28, 2010

> I play this game while trying to get to sleep.

read as "sheep."

I need to get more sheep.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:08 AM on February 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I could see Cooties working as a new Ridley Scott/H.R. Giger collaboration. Also, Lars Von Trier should do Monopoly: it's all about tactics and betrayal and drags on and on forever.
posted by contraption at 11:13 AM on February 28, 2010

Oh, and:

Orson Welles' Pit

John Hughes' Mystery Date

and it should probably really be the Coen Brothers' Unfinished Game of Clue
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:15 AM on February 28, 2010

Todd Solondz' Candyland
John Waters' Girl Talk
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:15 AM on February 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Stanly Kubricks never released film "The Game Of Life" was created during the height of the red scare in America. In it, Kubrick slowly reveals how the privileged middle classes are made to turn on each other at the slightest notice in exchange for material goods or class rankings and how society used torture, alienation and outright violence to justify the system. In the end, the main character is offered entry to the world of the middle class only if he turns on his more working class family. Unable to do so and realizing the "game" is rigged, he takes his own life. The movie was shelved for fears of a pro-communist message, but it was also denounced by the Soviet Union for it's belittling portrayal of impotent leftists.
posted by The Whelk at 11:20 AM on February 28, 2010 [6 favorites]

Ken Burns's Risk
Robert Greenwald's Monopoly
Uwe Boll's Hi-Ho Cherry-O! (starring Tara Ried and Brian Dennehy)

jonmc: Kevin Smith's Hungry Hungry Hippos?

C'mon, that's clearly a Spielberg movie.
posted by mkultra at 11:21 AM on February 28, 2010

Mary Harron's Mall Madness, but only if we can get Ellis to help her punch up the script first.
posted by pupdog at 11:25 AM on February 28, 2010

Michael Bay's War.

It will be two men sitting at a table. One will put down a card. The other man will put down a card. They will reveal which card is the higher card. Then, as something racially insensitive explodes, the man with the higher card will take both cards.

It will cost nearly a billion dollars and 47 children will be orphaned by its production.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:35 AM on February 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Stanly Kubricks never released film "The Game Of Life" was created during the height of the red scare in America.

I was tempted to do a Jeopardy!-style 'Before & After' list, but I only got as far as Haneke's Funny Games of Life.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:35 AM on February 28, 2010

I'm holding out for a film version of Arkham Horror.
posted by Scattercat at 11:39 AM on February 28, 2010

From the Battleship link: There will be a battleship-esque screen in the game similar to the movie:

Something tells me the words "game" and "movie" reversed are.
posted by localroger at 11:44 AM on February 28, 2010

Jerry Bruckheimer would make a hell an exciting Jenga movie.

I think you mean: JENGA!!!

But seriously, I can imagine a lot of these recommendations sounds great. I'm sure Hitchcock's Operation would have done for surgery what supposedly he did for showers.

Though for Don't Wake Daddy, I thought Todd Solondz. And it was as just as an upsetting a plot as you might imagine.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:51 AM on February 28, 2010

Terry Gilliam's Candyland

I would watch this over and over.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:03 PM on February 28, 2010

The ONE TRUE Pac-Man movie script is encapsulaed in this tee-shirt design, "the Madness of Mission 6."
posted by mwhybark at 12:14 PM on February 28, 2010

Barbie's Dream House by The Brothers Quay

I don't care if it's not a game. I want to see that.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:15 PM on February 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

Tarkovsky's Action Baseball
posted by generalist at 12:19 PM on February 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

Please please -

Tim Burton's Uncle Wiggily

The skeezicks would be awesome.
posted by newdaddy at 12:20 PM on February 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

I always see Mousetrap as an elaborate dystopian Terry Gilliam extravaganza, with vast sets and traps, improbable delays and disasters and --- of course --- the Hamster Factor.

I also think Fincher could do a lot with Mastermind, a la Seven, though maybe that calls for a director with a richer palette.
posted by Elsa at 12:22 PM on February 28, 2010

Ken Russell actually already made Snakes and Ladders: Lair of the White Worm
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 12:27 PM on February 28, 2010

(money shot at :58 seconds)
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 12:31 PM on February 28, 2010

If Buñuel did Clue: Silvia Pinal, in the hallway, with a candlestick
posted by gimonca at 12:37 PM on February 28, 2010

though maybe that calls for a director with a richer palette.

Nonsense. There are only four colors...
posted by hippybear at 12:56 PM on February 28, 2010

Barbie's Dream House by The Brothers Quay

I don't care if it's not a game. I want to see that.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:15 PM on February 28

That one's already been done by Todd Haynes.
posted by vhsiv at 12:57 PM on February 28, 2010

^YTV
posted by vhsiv at 1:00 PM on February 28, 2010

Russ Meyer's Twister
posted by wobh at 1:01 PM on February 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Not to be confused with M. Night Shymalan's Twister. Don't waste the price of a rental; I totally saw the end coming.
posted by Elsa at 1:03 PM on February 28, 2010

Akira Kurosawa's Carcassone
posted by equalpants at 1:28 PM on February 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I totally saw the end coming.

It turns out Bruce Willis is a tornado.
posted by The Whelk at 1:29 PM on February 28, 2010

Steven Spielberg's Simon (technically, a re-release of Close Encounters).
posted by zippy at 2:33 PM on February 28, 2010

plus a cameo performance by someone Uno.

I love Uno Kier! He's such a wild card, stealing scenes.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:41 PM on February 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Mike Leigh's Scrabble
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:42 PM on February 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

"He is hermetic and only leaves the apartment to purchase anti-psychotic medication which he hoards using a number of forged prescriptions."

Pretty sure they are confusing "hermetic" with "hermitic".
posted by hermitosis at 4:49 PM on February 28, 2010

Funny idea, but could have been better executed with a better choice of directors, maybe extending it to directors who are no longer living since it's all fantasy anyway. Like Stanley Kubrick's Hungry Hungry Hippos or something. See, that's a funnier idea than any of theirs right there.
posted by DecemberBoy at 4:56 PM on February 28, 2010

Sofia Coppola's Solitaire
posted by andryeevna at 5:46 PM on February 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

You guys realize STRETCH ARMSTRONG is being made into a movie with Taylor Lautner, right?
posted by unSane at 5:58 PM on February 28, 2010

John Frankenheimer's Mille Bornes

Wait, I'd see that.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:00 PM on February 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

Jacques Brel or Billy Wilder could do 'Pick up sticks'

(both heavy smokers)
posted by Hardcore Poser at 6:01 PM on February 28, 2010

Actually David Lynch should do Bonkers, but if he's too busy filming 'Boggle' or 'Snakes and Ladders' then Christopher Nolan's a good second choice.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 6:09 PM on February 28, 2010

Late to the party, but I see no-one's mentioned Quentin Tarrantino's : Guess Who.
The artwork has already been done
posted by JustAsItSounds at 6:20 PM on February 28, 2010

Peter Jackson's Talisman?

Sylvester Stallone's Rock-em Sock-em Robots?

Lars von Trier's Shogi? (Actually, I'd love to see a Dogma 95 version of Pokemon)
posted by Ghidorah at 6:39 PM on February 28, 2010

We really have run out of ideas, haven't we?
posted by Avenger at 7:35 PM on February 28, 2010

No, we ran out of risk-friendly financiers.
posted by unSane at 7:37 PM on February 28, 2010

Herschell Gordon Lewis' Splattergories
posted by hydrophonic at 9:21 PM on February 28, 2010

We really have run out of ideas, haven't we?

Hitchcock, Duck Duck Goose
posted by sallybrown at 9:21 PM on February 28, 2010

Charlie Kaufman's Concentration
John Lurie's Go Fish
Old Maid, a Merchant-Ivory film
posted by hydrophonic at 9:31 PM on February 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

Scott Gairdner's fake Pac-Man: the Movie trailer has 5.8 million views on YouTube. At one point I looked at it and all the commenters on the front panel of comments thought it was a real trailer.
posted by crinklebat at 11:40 PM on February 28, 2010

Michael Bay's Go.

I guess you've never watched Hikaru no Go. It has at least as many explosions and twice as much flying through the air as any Michael Bay movie.
posted by DU at 6:35 AM on March 1, 2010

Let's not forget Ang Lee's sweeping new Chinese epic: 麻將 (Majhong).
posted by Pollomacho at 6:59 AM on March 1, 2010

John Woo's Lawn Darts
posted by brundlefly at 9:10 AM on March 1, 2010

We really have run out of ideas, haven't we?

Not even close.

Who Stole Ed's Pants by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:33 AM on March 1, 2010

Dylan Avery's Balderdash
posted by brundlefly at 9:59 AM on March 1, 2010

Jim Jarmusch's Charades (in black&white, of course, with parallel overlapping ministories)
posted by hippybear at 10:04 AM on March 1, 2010

Adrian Lyne's 7 Minutes in Heaven
posted by sallybrown at 10:15 AM on March 1, 2010

What about Trivial Pursuit? Would they have to do that documentary style?

Michael Moore's Trivial Pursuit: Moops...or Moors?

I was thinking more along the lines of Oliver Stone's Trivial Pursuit
posted by Pollomacho at 10:20 AM on March 1, 2010

David Mamet's Taboo.
posted by contraption at 10:28 AM on March 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Gus Van Sant's Apples to Apples

I mean...c'mon.
posted by kittyprecious at 10:40 AM on March 1, 2010

tigrefacile, I believe that should be "Roman Polanski's [Flight] Risk."

Also, "from the director of Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge (who so-very-appropriately is credited with "special thanks" for
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443491/) comes another blaze of singing and music and action, Charades!"

And previewed at the same festival, it's "Don't Break the Ice!" by Ingmar Bergman.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:17 AM on March 1, 2010

Matthew Barney's Donkey Kong? Wait, that was Cremaster 3.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:20 PM on March 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

Darren Aronofsky's Thumb War
Spike Lee's Buck Buck
Sam Raimi's I've Got Your Nose
Tom Tykwer's Hūsker Dū?
posted by Smedleyman at 5:30 PM on March 1, 2010

> Sam Raimi's I've Got Your Nose

That one's going to give me nightmares.
posted by contraption at 3:09 AM on March 2, 2010

Rob Zombie's take on Mr. Potato Head was totally unexpected
posted by pupdog at 6:01 PM on March 2, 2010

Rob Zombie's take on Mr. Potato Head was totally unexpected

Let me guess: redneck with a crappy childhood?
posted by brundlefly at 6:33 PM on March 2, 2010