The long-in-gestation Monopoly movie rolls a double six, as Margot Robbie and her production company join the project.
I was writing news over at another website when Hollywood powerful people first started talking about bringing the board game Monopoly to the big screen. Ridley Scott, if memory serves, was circling the project at one point, but back then, it all came to nothing.
Then the Barbie movie happened. Taking the Mattel dolls as its source, the film was a gigantic success which had Hollywood scrambling around toy shop aisles for more inspiration.
That’s when Monopoly was re-discovered. Lionsgate picked up the project when it acquired Entertainment One at the end of last year from Hasbro. It’s extended the rights since too, and now it’s gone to Margot Robbie’s production company LuckyChap for a bit of help.
Robbie, Tom Ackerley and Josey McNamara, the trio behind LuckyChap, are now firmly on board the Monopoly film, and Lionsgate has moved the project right up its priority list. No idea yet who the filmmakers who have to wrestle this to the screen will be, nor what approach they’re planning to take either. Hopefully, there’s going to be a welcome dollop of subversion involved, lest we’re looking at another tale of very rich people getting richer. As much as I enjoyed watching films such as Air, the idea of films celebrating big companies is ripe for a piss take, and maybe Monopoly might be tempted to go in that direction.
That’s just me, though. There’s presumably in the archives somewhere around a decade’s worth of material trying to crack this already, and maybe some clues are lying in there.
When we hear more about a director or cast for the film, we’ll let you know. But with Lionsgate looking to accelerate the movie, then the chances are that things might just get cracking in the next year or so. More as we hear it.
