Universal announced today that it has acquired the film rights to a number of Hasbro toy lines, including Monopoly, Magic: The Gathering, Oujia, Stretch Armstrong, Battleship and Candyland.

Seriously. This is not just a parody post to highlight the creative bankruptcy of big Hollywood films. It's really true. Ridely Scott (director of Alien, American Gangster and Blade Runner) is hard at work on the big screen adaptation of Monopoly.

We really didn't make that up.

Universal also announced it had won the rights to adapt the classic Atari game, Asteroids, into a film

I've died and am now in HELL...damn Asmodeus and his contracts...I thought the two souls I purchased would be enough... Curse you and the FINE PRINT!

They won't be the first board games to be made into movies.

Maybe you're forgetting this gem from 1985 (or perhaps you're just trying to forget.)

They won't be the first board games to be made into movies.

Maybe you're forgetting this gem from 1985 (or perhaps you're just trying to forget.)

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If any of those movies ended up appealing to me as much as Clue, then I would be happy.

Yeah, but clue kind of works as a movie. It's a game about a murder mystery, of which there is a lot of media. Plus it had a good cast and was made in an era where that kind of film could be produced.

Madeline Kahn? Christopher Lloyd? Tim Curry?

Sheer awesome.

Yeah, I rather enjoyed Clue!

Why in the world would anyone consider the Asteroids video game to be a necessary purchase for movie rights? It has no plot. Heck, it barely even has any graphics to speak of. I played the heck out of this game back in the day when arcades ruled the mall. Even then, if I'd been told there was going to be an "Asteroids, the Movie," my reaction would have been a head-scratching "Huh?"

Certainly, Clue is much easier to turn into a movie than many of the properties that were purchased, but I remember being disappointed by it all the same. I don't imagine Battleship, Candyland or Ouija being too hard to make into movies, and even Monopoly could be turned into some sort of real estate drama or scheme comedy. Stretch Armstrong is a toy so that one's pretty easy too. Since there's not much to Asteroids, the writers can do pretty much anything they want with it as long as it involves some rocks floating around in space. I just don't think any of these movies will be worth watching.

I don't imagine Battleship, Candyland or Ouija being too hard to make into movies, and even Monopoly could be turned into some sort of real estate drama or scheme comedy. Stretch Armstrong is a toy so that one's pretty easy too. Since there's not much to Asteroids, the writers can do pretty much anything they want with it as long as it involves some rocks floating around in space. I just don't think any of these movies will be worth watching.

Oh, and they've already made a Ouija movie. It's called Witchboard.

They made Jumanji.

Except for Magic: The Gathering…Falling to the floor laughing.

B0110cks! I had almost completely expunged any knowledge of Witchboard from my memory. Thanks ever so much.

Jumanji was based on a childrens book that became a board game due to the movie (I remember the Reading Rainbow episode that featured Jumanji as the featured book.)

If you want to make a movie about battleships, wouldn't it be easier, and better, to do a WWII movie about some great naval battle, back when these ships were the kings of the oceans?

I'm feeling a movie based on Connect Four would be a romantic comedy.

Can we get R. Lee Ermey as the fleet commander? I just wanna hear him say, "You sunk my battleship!"