Sony and Mattel are joining forces to bring the View-Master to the movies – and have hired an Oscar-nominee to help. It was back in October of last year that we were checking the date to see if it was 1st April, when word of a View-Master movie reached our deep underground bunker. Those of ... That View Master movie is back on
Sony and Mattel are joining forces to bring the View-Master to the movies – and have hired an Oscar-nominee to help.
It was back in October of last year that we were checking the date to see if it was 1st April, when word of a View-Master movie reached our deep underground bunker.
Those of a, cough, ‘certain vintage’ will know what these toys were. Basically, a miniature slideshow and precisely nothing else. Made by Mattel, you could prolong the life of the View-Master by buying another slide disc for it, and so there’s some creative wiggle room there. Still, Sony Pictures acquired the idea, presumably with one eye on the grosses of something like the Barbie movie. And here we are.
A year and a bit on, and some progress. Phil Johnston, recently a guest on the Film Stories podcast, the director of the recent The Twits film, and Oscar nominee for Ralph Breaks The Internet, has been hired to turn what sounds like a stretch of an idea into something tangible. He’s got the job of writing the script for the movie, and presumably he’s in pole position to direct the project as well.
This is a project on the slate of Mattel Studios, and you can bet that the toy company is mining its catalogues to find more things to turn into movies as well.
In the case of View-Master, Johnston is quoted as saying that “View-Master was one of my favorite toys when I was a kid (still is), because it gave me a chance to explore faraway worlds without ever leaving my room. I would escape into those slides for hours at a time, and no one would yell at me for staring. I want to bring the wonder I felt as a bowl-haired kid in the 80s to the big screen now, and working with Mattel, Sony and Escape Artists is giving me the chance to do just that.”
Sometimes, from the oddest of source material comes the most surprising of movies. We wait and see if View-Master fits that particular bill. In the meantime, might we direct Mattel executives towards something like this?
