Ridley Scott To Turn Monopoly Into Blade Runner
Ridley Scott's master plan to turn every property into Blade Runner has brought him to the board game Monopoly, which he has agreed to direct as a feature. Scott's critical success with the Philip K. Dick adaptation means that every time someone desires a director for a high profile property, he happily throws his name in the mix, with the subsequent press touting how this one will be the next Blade Runner. Apparently mixing Blade Runner with Monopoly is the pitch that finally worked on Universal execs, for reasons we fail to understand:The Hollywood Reporter says that Scott will bring Blade Runner-style futurism to the project, and notes that "board games and branded properties have become more attractive as studios look to mitigate risk by finding built-in audiences." Monopoly will slot in besides similar Hasbro projects like the Michael Bay-produced Ouija Board, and a feature based on Battleship. So now Blade Runner meets Monopoly...how exactly? Who nodded their head during that pitch meeting? We want names.
When Scott said he'd adapt Joe Haldeman's classic science fiction novel The Forever War, he made sure to point out that the book is "a science-fiction epic, a bit of The Odyssey by way of Blade Runner, built upon a brilliant, disorienting premise." That we can think about taking at face value, but unless the film's ending reveals the Monopoly guy as a replicant, it's tough to make that connection to his latest project.
Like The Forever War, a planned Leonardo DiCaprio adaptation of Brave New World was rumored solely for its resemblance to Ridley's back catalog. Even he admitted as much to io9: "I have 40 things on the go at once. But that's a very important one." By now, Scott's clearly better at becoming attached to a project than he is at getting the money to actually make it. Monopoly Has Electric Company [THR]