It doesn’t look good for the movie based on the Ouija board as Universal Pictures reportedly has dropped it.
The movie studio has been planning on using Hasbro’s Ouija board as the basis for a Michael Bay and McG movie for a few years now, but New York Magazine’s Vulture is reporting that plans have been abandoned. Universal, who also made deals with Hasbro and Milton Bradley for Candy Land, Stretch Armstrong and Battleship films, is said to have offered the toy company $5 million for backing out of the 2008 Ouija deal.
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Of course all is not totally lost — Vulture also reports that Michael Bay and McG are shopping the project around at other studios. Apparently McG sees the project “as a big-budget Jumanji-like family fantasy.” Which, to be perfectly honest, seems like the root of the problem right there. Shouldn’t a film about a creepy, spirit-channeling board game be a horror movie? It seems to us that every time we’ve encountered one of these witchery boards on the big screen, we’ve left the theater terrified. We think The Exorcist or Paranormal Activity, not family fun. They should rewrite the script, cast a talented, yet still underrated spooky actor like, say, Chloe Moretz and do the whole thing for about half the budget. Problem solved. (That’s how it works in Hollywood, right?)
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