Board Games We Want to See Become Movies

Marvel Comics has long since become a player in Hollywood, so the folks at Hasbro are following suit. With 'Transformers' and 'G.I. Joe' already filling theaters, Sony Pictures Entertainment, along with Will Smith and James Lassiter's Overbrook production company, has acquired the film rights to Risk, everybody's favorite game of world domination.

It isn't the first board game-turned-movie "adaptation" Hollywood has planned. Not by any stretch (and we're not talking about that fun 1985 'Clue' movie). Last year, Universal announced a six-year partnership with Hasbro to produce movies based on Monopoly (with Ridley Scott set to direct), Candyland, Ouija, Battleship, Magic: The Gathering and Clue (again, now with 'Pirates of the Caribbean' director Gore Verbinski attached).

Obviously, this trend could easily get out of hand. But it could also be a lot of fun. Here are five more childhood favorites that need to be given the big-screen treatment.

Twister
This one has special effects written all over it. In the same vein as 'Wanted,' James McAvoy twists himself into countless taffy-like shapes to avoid bullets whose paths have been bent to come after him. "Left hand red -- now duck!"




Connect Four
Keanu Reeves, have we got a gig for you! When Neo's last piece drops into place, giving him four in a row, he's transported into a new dimension where he's merely a game piece on a bigger board -- or a metal piece in a larger machine. Wait, wait -- an ingredient in a humongous recipe! That's perfect -- a new 'Matrix,' this time inside an Easy-Bake oven! Talk about cross-promotion!

Operation
Surely Quentin Tarantino has some time on his hands for this. The trailer: "In this room there's nothing funny about a Funny Bone. You won't want to see what's in your Bread Basket. And your Adam's Apple is never far from a Broken Heart." Cue the splattering, and maybe a Jack Nicholson cameo as the now-elderly dentist from 'Little Shop of Horrors?'


Chutes and Ladders
"In a world where one roll of the dice can lift you to unimaginable heights, or send you plummeting to horrifying depths ... comes one man ... Will Ferrell!" All that tumbling and climbing will give him plenty of chances to perform his specialty: yelling really, really loud.



Mouse Trap
A 3-D re-enactment of everybody's favorite contraption. Can anyone toss enough money at Angelina Jolie to resurrect Lara Croft? The scene where she outruns the metal ball speeding down the staircase will be a killer!




Eventually, of course, the day will come when this sub-genre is totally depleted, and we have to go totally old school. I can see it now: "Checkers -- where everything is as simple as black and white." Maybe Pixar can hire Edward Asner again and call it 'UP! After the Landing.'