How Board Games Can be Made Into Movies

“Where's Waldo” is the most recent of these cinematic acquisitions to make news. As for the actual film, think “Zelig.” “Zelig” was a mockumentary by Woody Allen about a “human chameleon” named Leonard Zelig (played by Woody Allen) in the 1920s who had the ability to look and act like whomever he was around, including Babe Ruth and Nazis.

Since that might not be enough to carry a movie especially without the historical context of “Zelig,” “Waldo” could also be a spy/assassin movie where Waldo uses his human chameleon skills to blend into crowds and eliminate those other people they told us to find at the end of the Waldo books.

"Operation" is an intense medical drama, kind of like "House" or "Fantastic Voyage." A team of doctors are trying to cure a single patient with a variety of increasingly worse symptoms while dealing with their own demons and issues.

“Monopoly” is an intense corporate espionage thriller about the loss of one's soul in the quest for money along the lines of “Michael Clayton,” “Wall Street,” and “The Secret of My Success.” We start with our three main characters. I stink at coming up with character names so I assume they'll be cutely named after game tokens like Mr. Thimble, Mr. Racécar, and Mr. Shoe.



At the beginning, Thimble, Racécar and Shoe are all friends starting at the bottom of the real estate business. Ever optimistic and hopeful, Thimble's truly idealistic. Racécar is not particularly evil or malevolent but slightly unscrupulous. Shoe's just average. Thimble actually starts with a pretty good business and he obtains the prime property of Boardwalk early on. Also early on, Racécar realizes the only way to survive and thrive in this business is through increasingly shady and underhanded means. Racécar also gets the movie's first monopoly and gouges people for rent in his slums.

Along the line, more deals are made, more property is bought, mortgaging, there's some stock fraud investigation, some people go to jail. Racécar is dealt a serious financial blow when he has to pay considerably to fix his massive amounts of hotels and houses. Thimble, unfortunately, has his own problem as his business begins to tank and he keeps missing out on available property to buy.

Racécar, after some moral struggling, sacrifices his own humanity by killing Shoe and buying all his property for cheap at auction. Thimble can't buy anything from the auction because his business is still hurting from poor investments in railroads, which no one ever uses. Racécar, struggling to maintain his grasp on his last thread of morality, even offers Thimble money at Shoe's funeral which Thimble won't take, being well aware of what Racécar has done and what he has become. This leaves Racécar truly and sends him unimpeded down his dark path.

Later on, with no property left to buy and no way to earn money, Thimble has no choice but to accept ridiculously one-sided property trades from Racécar, but he will never give up his beloved Boardwalk.

Near the end, Thimble is penniless and destitute, devoid of all property (real and personal), his family has left him but he still believes that by dong right, he will succeed. It's a cold, rainy night when his car breaks down (it's symbolic!) on the outskirts of Oriental Avenue, a name which will probably have to changed for the movie. The only motel for miles is one of Racécar's. It's either that or risk his life in the ghetto slums of Baltic and Mediterranean Avenue. Thimble pleads for a place to stay to the clerk. Racécar, who has become the king of real estate in this fictional world, is called personally in his lavish office. He will allow Thimble to stay at his motel; the cost being Broadway.

Whether or not Thimble gives up the property is left ambiguous. The film concludes with a beaten, destroyed Thimble walking up the boardwalk on Boardwalk, sitting on a bench amidst the tourists and chintzy shops, and watching the sun set as he dies.

“Mouse Trap” will be about a mad scientist who invents things. Possibly torture devices. Like everyone else who had access to a Mouse Trap set, I never played the actual game, I just set up the contraption and watched it fall.

The Classic Game of World Domination should be the Epic Movie of World Domination. The biggest problem in making a movie about Risk is figuring out exactly where the focus (or focuses) should be?

Is the movie about the dictators (or a single “good” conqueror against other bad conquerors)? How did these people created their power bases that gets armies to follow them literally to the end of the earth? Do they focus on the political angle of conquering like Oliver Stone's “Alexander” tried to do and failed miserably at? Can the filmmakers do this without making lame heavy-handed George W. Bush parallels thinking they're being topical and intelligent?

Or is it a giant, ultraviolent, war film almost exclusively of battle scenes with the scope of the “Lord of the Rings” movies but with humans and their weaponry and not orcs and elves? (Like “Terminator Salvation” should have been.)

Is it a war epic following a single battalion (or maybe one on each side) like “Band of Brothers?” Is it about the rise of a single John Connor-esque leader who becomes the top general of the armies and eventually ruler of the newly dominated world after successfully fighting off the bad want-to-be fascists?

Do we go around the world featuring different battles in different countries and landscapes- from the amber waves of grain of America to the icy winter-land of the weak Ukraine to the deserts of Africa like in “Patton”? Or is it could be a personal film about civilians dealing with these wars savaging their homeland?

Or should it be a semi-combination of all of the above like in “The Longest Day?”

“Guess Who” should be a crime drama/mystery along the lines of “The Usual Suspects.” A cop has to pour through hundreds of potential suspects while dealing with uncooperative witnesses and obscure clues as to the identity of who committed a serious crime.

“Clue” was done quite well in the 1985 cult comedy classic of the same name, well known for its excellent cast (featuring Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd and Michael McKean), three different endings and its old “whodunnit” style. It'll probably be remade without the wit or class of the first movie but more as a generic (read: garbage) crime drama like “Righteous Kill.”

"Battleship” would be a naval war movie. Set entirely on water, it'll focus on two armadas battling one another for the sake of the oceans. Destroyers against submarines, carriers against that boat with only two holes in it, battleship against battleship.

It's not a particularly complicated movie but it's not a particularly complicated game. But such seafaring war movies have a long, somewhat solid history for filmmakers to crib from. There hasn't been a modern naval war movie in awhile with iron clad ships blowing the crap out of each other. (Do war ships still use iron?) Then again, there hasn't been a modern naval war in awhile. (And of course, why would anyone care about seeing boats fighting when all the naval terms and procedures can be used for laser strewn space wars like in “Battlestar Galactica?”)

As long as the filmmakers take their cues from older movies, particularly suspenseful World War 2 ones like “Das Boot,” “Run Silent, Run Deep” and “Sink The Bismark,” rather than the Russell Crowe bomb “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” or the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, there might be potential for a decent war film.

Also, if the filmmakers wanted to take a cue from Marvel with their Avengers series and link the film to another in the “board game” genre, “Battleship” could be the seafront for the epic war in “Risk: The Movie.”

Is he a dream or a dud? "Mystery Date" is a wacky high school sex comedy along the lines of Superbad and American Pie except with girls in the lead. Yes, they're wannabe whores. "Mystery Date" will also have elements of mystery to it (who could the secret admirer be?!) because otherwise, why would it be called "mystery" date.

For starters, “Life” should be based on the original “Game of Life” where the best occupations one could aspire to were dullard professions like 'accountant' and 'teacher' and not the bullshit new version where 'rock star' is one of the options. Remember, this is “The Game of Life” not “The Game of Fantasy” or “The Game of Wish Fulfillment To Escape The Monotony of Our Actual Miserable Existence.”

With that out of the way, “Life” would be one of those “Parenthood”-esque dramedies spanning several decades that aren't particularly good but simple and basic enough that older people enjoy them. (Because it reminds them of them!)

The Blues and the Pinks are adult friends in their late 20s/early 30s beginning the process of settling down. We watch as they go through their adult lives with marriages, break-ups, heartbreaks, kids, deaths, reunions and ending with the birth of a grandchild (probably a joint Blue/Pinkerton). The characters won't be particularly interesting (or they'll try to be funny in that lame way bland people think that they're funny) but that's okay, since it's an unoffensive slice of Americana that hits all the right notes. It'll also probably have some sort of overplayed 1960s soundtrack since all those movies seem to have some sort of overplayed 1960s soundtrack.

Remember a few years ago when every week another stupid CGI cartoon came out featuring progressively lesser celebrities voicing animals? "H^3" will be one of those. The famished hippos will be the lead and they'll associate with other safari-esque animals prime for marketing and toys.