Universal Won't Conjure Up OUIJA No More!

Have Universal finally cottoned on to the fact that movie versions of Hasbro's famous board games doesn't actually hold the answer to their troubling several-years long streak of losing money on risky tentpoles? Vulture say the Hollywood major have decided to admit defeat and pay the $5 million penalty in their contracted deal with Hasbro to NOT adapt the board game Ouija into a tentpole feature and have put the project in turnaround, which coupled with the millions they have already spent on several writers and director attachments, has proved to be a significant waste of time and energy for everyone involved. Originally the plan was for a 'Jumanji' style 'board game coming to life' family fantasy film and after many, many, many different writer/director attachments it was to be director McG working from a Simon Kinberg (Sherlock Holmes, This Means War) updated draft... but Ouija no longer think the movie can make them any movie. McG bizarrely has become quite attached to the project and is now shopping it around town, though his first choice Paramount (who made Hasbro's Transformers property into a giant) have already passed and we can't imagine any other studio would be interested. I mean what name recognition is there really in Ouija... anyone can make an original horror film without needing someone elses copyright. Ouija then becomes the first victim of the rather bonkers six year exclusive deal Universal signed with Hasbro amongst something of a panic in 2008 and the probability is their planned adaptations of Monopoly and Magic: The Gathering will go the same way. Hell we already know Clue has been chopped. Of course it's too late for them to pull the plug on their $200 million Battleship tentpole of 2012 (despite many of them probably wishing they could) and for whatever reason they are obsessed with the idea of a Candyland film which I imagine will get made, and I actually think there is some mileage in a Stretch Armstrong movie (basically a Mr. Fantastic movie)... and I suppose maybe they should make at least some of them, because $5 million a time to cancel these movies runs up the cost of a tentpole in and of itself!