Mattel is making more than toys lately, and even without Toy Story I am sure we will be seeing more of their products translated to big screen properties.
The latest to make the leap. The Magic 8 Ball.
Paramount has – get this – “extended its business with Mattel, optioning the venerable Magic 8 Ball to use as the basis for a live action adventure film.”
While most of the intarwebz are a buzz with bashing this idea as stupid, I personally think it has loads of potential.
This is a property with no story. And while that seems like a big obsticle for making it into a movie, its actually quite ingenious.
They can’t mess it up!
Ok, they can. As with any film it has as good a chance of being good as it does of stinking up the joint. But it has to work in its favour since after all, out of the 20 possible answers the 8 Ball has in its polyhedron of fate, exactly half of them are positive, a quarter are neutral and only the last quarter are bad.
All they need is an original script that revolved around a device that offers vague glimpses of the future – like a crystal ball, or a person who sees the future – and then tweak the story to involve the classic fad toy instead, and suddenly you have your entire marketing plan already hatched.
Brand recognition and an original script.
I don’t see a bad side to this.
I hope Paramount finds the book Phases of Reason I: The Eight Ball. That book would defiantly make a great movie. If you haven’t read it you should!
RomCom came as first thought.
Sounds like a horror film to me!
Just as long as it’s not called “magic 8 ball”
This reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner. (not the creature on the wing) You probably know the one one, so I won’t describe it. So, this actually sounds good.
Horror film was my first thought as well.
That Twilight Zone episode came to mind immediately. Great episode, and the idea behind it had A LOT of potential. I hope Magic 8-Ball takes full advantage of the opportunities.