That above still is from a Hasbro stockholders event slideshow that a spy from Bleeding Cool attended yesterday and snapped for our pleasure. It depicts the logo's of all their board games they are aggressively developing films out of as part of their deal with Universal. They are; Micronauts: They Came From Inner Space (a Transformers esque film which J.J. Abrams is developing but it's taking the back-seat behind Super 8 and Star Trek 2 right now)... Battleship (that's due out in 2012 from Peter Berg) Candy Land (Enchanted's Kevin Lima is developing) Stretch Armstrong (from Gulliver's Travels helmer Rob Letterman) Risk (Amazingly, Will Smith is producing) Monopoly (Ridley Scott is supposed to direct but he'll never get around to it) Clue (Gore Verbinski will direct) And then the Ouija Board film... Universal's attempt to make a supernatural thriller out of the preposterous concept that a flat board with letters, numbers, symbols and a piece of wood can summon the spirits of the dead. The movie has been given a Nov. 9th 2012 release (strangely missing the boat on Halloween) This is the fascinating opportunity that enticed French filmmaker Pierre Morel to exit Paramount's Dune remake this week. THR say Morel is now front-runner to direct, which certainly jives with what we heard last month. Yes, we understand that Paramount weren't exactly speedy in bringing Frank Herbert's popular sci-fi novel to the big screen again, and the David Lynch version from the 80's hasn't got the greatest reputation but going from Dune to an Ouija board game film is the kind of drop hitting the snake on a game of Snakes & Ladders would bring. Competing with Morel are Sylvain White (The Losers), Scot Stewart (Legion) and John Moore (Max Payne) - a collective group of mediocre B-Movie filmmakers. Also at the Hasbro event was the first promo image from G.I. Joe 2, which is probably just an un-used marketing image from the first film. Strangely it sounds like Stephen Sommers was not mentioned as the director so maybe he's off the project? Meanwhile, THR say Pierre Morel is also in talks to direct EDF at Warner Bros (Earth Defensive Force) - a giant Alien invasion film being produced by Sam Raimi. Yup because there isn't enough similar sounding projects in development;
The story is set after three alien fighters attack the planet, leaving countries humiliated. The governments of Earth then race to create a space fighting force in preparation for a second attack by an approaching alien horde.
That one is expected to come after Ouija. He's also got Taken 2 potentially on the cards.