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Never Mind

Universal Turns Down the Hasbro Ouija Board Movie

by Jamie Frevele | 4:17 pm, August 24th, 2011


The mission to turn every Hasbro board game into a movie has yet another defeat: Universal has passed on making a movie based on the 100%-supernatural-and-not-at-all-fake Ouija Board, making it the only board-game-inspired movie to have probably made for a genuinely entertaining movie that would not have raised the hackles of its most devoted fans. It was set to be directed by McG and produced by Michael Bay. And had I consulted a Ouija Board before writing the sentence where I said this might have made a good movie, I would not have written the sentence with McG and Michael Bay in it.

Much like the deal with Clue — which has already been made into a classic movie — Universal expects that the Ouija Board movie will find another home after deciding that it did not want to take on the movie’s budget, which was over $100 million. And that means that it still has life in it, which is a hilarious reference to the way Ouija Boards communicate with the dead.

Ugh, sorry guys. That was a bad joke, not a hilarious one.

Universal is paying $5 million to back out of the deal, and it’s probably not incorrect to say that their apprehension in producing a big-budget movie based on a board game came from the resoundingly negative reaction to its trailer for their Battleship movie, which is costing them $200 million (but it has Rihanna in it!) and looks, well … stupid. It looks stupid. And now, everyone knows that Universal spend a boat-load — SEE WHAT I DID THERE — on a stupid movie.

And honestly, a movie about the Ouija Board might not make a bad movie — come on, awesome supernatural elements! — but in the hands of McG and Michael Bay, who want to make “an expensive, family action-adventure in the vein of Jumanji” aka “Jumanji with a Ouija Board”? No. Not having it. I will not see the device that allowed me to contact Elvis Presley himself become a laughingstock.

But it’ll probably still happen. And we’ll just have to make fun of it.

(AV Club, Deadline)

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  • Anonymous

    tinyurl.com/2df4ccp

  • http://profiles.google.com/quieteyes Chris Talbot

    Let’s call a spade a spade here: a movie based on the game Battleship could, in fact, be good.  It is based very loosely off WWI or WWII style naval warfare.  Basically it’d be an old fashioned war movie. But what they ended up doing with the alien thing?  I’m having serious doubts.  :-/

    A Ouija Board movie, likewise, could be very cool…or very sucky depending on who’s doing it.  Considering the people interested; I’m rather happy they aren’t going to be doing it.  

  • Anonymous

    There’s already been a Ouija board movie, and Tawny Kitaen was in it! Oh my God, I am so old.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090327/

  • Anonymous

    And I really wish I had the option to comment with Name/URL here. I kind of hate Disqus; I only have this account so that I can comment sort of anonymously on my local paper’s website. Oh well. This is clearly my first comment here, after months and months of reading!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1208921 Nikki Lincoln

    …or the Exorcist. Or any movie with a sleepover. 

  • http://xemily.com Dorkus

    Honestly, Battleship looks like one of those movies that has no real right to be any good, but turns out to be surprisingly enjoyable anyway. Sort of like the first Pirates of the Caribbean. A movie based on a Disney pirate theme-park ride? Sounds totally stupid! But I totally unashamedly love it. As do we all.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7G4SWUX2MCWWXLMYNN347JMIZY Frodo Baggins

    Please let some industry reported have announced this with the title “Universal says “N”….. “O” to Ouija Movie”

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