While news of an upcoming Candy Crush movie starring Liam Neeson and Stephen Colbert was revealed to be a hoax, the idea itself is not so far-fetched. Hollywood has a history of turning board games and, later, video games into films. Check out the slideshow to see which games carried over to the silver screen. Based on the murder-mystery board game, the film follows the six guests, a maid and a buttler during their stay at Hill House. The group is interconnected, giving everyone motives for murder. The “who done it” flick is more comedic than scary. Fun fact: When it was released, each theater showed one of three different endings that were shot. All three endings are included on the videos and DVDs. Related: Activision Blizzard to Buy 'Candy Crush' Maker for $5.9 Billion The colorful connecting blocks were the inspiration behind this blockbuster hit. With A-listers like Will Ferrell and Morgan Freeman voicing characters, the film follows an ordinary LEGO figure named Emmet on his journey to save the LEGO universe from an evil despot.
Fun Fact: This was Morgan Freeman’s first animated film, and although he was Lucius Fox in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, he’s said the Batman LEGO character was cool. Like the Hasbro game, the movie centers around naval combat, but that’s where the similarities stop. In the film, an international fleet must defeat aliens at sea, though the battle spills over onto land and into the air. Unlike the game, there are special effects and explosions rather than different colored pegs. Fun Fact: IMDB reveals, “The footage of Barack Obama saying ‘we are bringing all available resources to bear’ was taken from a press conference on March 17, 2011 about operations in the aftermath of the Tohoku, Japan earthquake and tsunami.” Based on the video game, the movie follows the title character as she fights various dangers and races against time to recover a mighty ancient artifact and keep it safe from those who would use it for nefarious purposes. Fun Fact: Lara is a hands-on fighter who doesn’t use any guns to wound or kill adversaries in the film.
Related: 12 Communication Tips You Can Learn From Monopoly In this live-action film based on the popular video game, two plumbers from Brooklyn -- Mario and Luigi -- enter an alternate world through a pipe. They must save a princess and the planet from an evolved dinosaur named King Koopa. Fun fact: Several big-name actors passed on the opportunity to play the main villain, including Kevin Costner, Michael Keaton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. There’s not much known about the plot of the film, but it’s intended to be an animated action comedy based off the smartphone game. It’s written by Jon Vitti, who also wrote the screenplays for The Simpsons Movie and Alvin and the Chipmunks. Fun fact: The mobile game Angry Birds has been downloaded more than 1 billion times. There was a lot of talk toward the end of 2014 about a Tetris movie hitting theaters like a ton of oddly-shaped bricks. At the time, the CEO of Threshold Entertainment, the studio slated to make the flick, told The Wall Street Journal the film would be “a very big, epic sci-fi movie.”
Now, a Chinese media mogul named Bruno Wu says he’s developing a Tetris movie, among other projects. There’s no word on the plot yet, so we’ll have to stay tuned to see if everything lines up (pun intended). Fun fact: The famous Broadway show tune composer Andrew Lloyd Webber created a dance remix from the Tetris theme song that broke into the Top 10 on the UK charts in 1992. Related: 5 Movies With Great Lessons for Entrepreneurs BBFCInsight mild fantasy violence, very mild bad language Director(s) Phil Lord,Christopher Miller Summary Emmett, an ordinary Lego construction worker, is recruited to join the Master Builders in a quest to stop an evil tyrant from gluing the Lego universe. Cut All known versions of this work passed uncut. BBFCinsight publication date 04/02/2014 Note: The following text may contain spoilers THE LEGO MOVIE is an animated children's film about an ordinary construction worker who must join forces with the Lego Master Builders to save his world from the evil plans of President Business.ViolenceThere are lots of fight sequences in which the good characters take on various baddies, including Lego robots and Lego skeletons.
The Lego figures kick and punch at each other, while leaping around in fantastical style. Very few of the blows are clearly seen to land and all the action involves toy figures rather than humans. Occasionally the heads of the Lego figures pop off during fights, and one character's head is knocked off by a flying coin but continues to talk to his friends. Other sequences have science fiction space ships and robots shooting laser beams at others, causing explosions and crashes. No one is seen to get hurt and the fact that all the fighting involves animated toy figures means that the fantasy nature of the violence is very clear.LanguageThere is some very mild bad language, with uses of 'butt', 'bum', 'darn' and 'heck'. BATMAN LEGO INTRO (F7),LEGO BATMAN PHONE MESSAGE,LEGO PRESIDENT BUSINESS INTRO (F9),THE LEGO MOVIE (ODEON INTRO),EMMETT LEGO INTRO (F8),THE LEGO MOVIE - SPECIAL EDITION - FILMMAKER TELESTRATOR COMMENTARY DVD, 3D DVD, Cinema Warner Home Video Ltd,Warner Brothers Entertainment UK Ltd
Some versions of this film are displayed in the 3D or IMAX format and some younger children may find them a more intense experienceOooh, after just reading /Film we've learned Mike Mitchell from the garbage that is Trolls is now directing The LEGO Movie Sequel, due out in 2019. The former director, Rob Schrab, had us delighted and calmly waiting for the film as Rob has worked on many properties that have made a landscape of weird fun, he's a cohort of Dan Harmon and helped create Channel 101. The film is now in the hands of someone who has now real care or vision and we'll probably make a forgetful piece of dog sh*t. Sigh.SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER The weeks leading up to release, though, brought raves for its story, humor and music. The critics have been overwhelmingly positive. All of that praise was great for business, but it also eclipsed the earlier cynicism about the property being a feature-length toy commercial. The fact that the film was made at all is a result of Hollywood experiencing an evolution in the realm of product placement.
While certainly not the first movie to be based on a retail item, The Lego Movie shows studios are warming to newer marketing options in film. The common placement practice has characters shown using a particular brand on screen–a performer drinks from a bottle “label out,” for example. Viewers, however, have adapted to these visuals, becoming resistant to the overt pitches and even being pulled out of the movie’s universe as a result. To make the product placement more palpable one method involves working with companies to have their products woven into the story line of the movies. One film that led the way was Terminator: Salvation. The 7-11 retail chain was a promotional partner, and that movie staged scenes of characters taking refuge inside one of those stores as part of the plot. The method was used last summer for the relaunch of the Superman franchise, Man of Steel. Gillette razors had a stake in that title, but they avoided a blatant logo display in the course of the film.
Instead the company used extensive advance marketing, and this meant when Clark Kent went to the mirror to shave in one scene audiences made the corporate connection. Beyond razors numerous other companies were similarly featured, which many fans considered a studio selling off plot points to the highest bidders. The larger perspective may be that this is becoming a welcome, and sometimes needed, method of getting a film made. For Steel, Warner Bros. teamed up with more than 100 promotional partners. The production budget for the film swelled to north of $225 million, but the studio mitigated its financial exposure. Those partnerships made ahead of filming netted the studio $160 million, and this allowed for a bigger budget to get a franchise under way. In more stark fashion were the product relationships for the recent James Bond entry, Skyfall. Heineken alone paid tens of millions to be imbibed on camera by the superspy, which created an outcry from his martini-sipping fans.
The reality, however, was the cash-strapped studio MGM could only get the film produced with the numerous companies licensing screen time and contributing marketing on behalf of the film. This creates a paradox for fans: is it worse to see a character manipulated for marketing, or to have the character become unavailable financially? Last year saw the downside of this trend with a growing number of titles where merchandise was not only displayed but integrated as major plot points. The Adam Sandler Grown Ups 2 was loaded with product placement, with extended scenes taking place in and around one store of promotional partner K-Mart. The action-choked chase film Getaway had one main car–a Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra–featured so prominently it basically was one of the main characters. Probably the most disturbing corporate plot point had to occur in the children’s animated feature Free Birds. The movie involved turkeys travelling back in time in a bid to prevent becoming the annual Thanksgiving menu item.
The climax of the film centered on Chuck E. Cheese pizzas being delivered to the pre-colonial pilgrims. The next step from product integration is the full scale assemblage of a movie around a product. The LEGO Movie is just that, but it nearly did not get made, as recent attempts at similar concepts have been disappointing. Warners delayed the film’s production at one time, and studio bosses were hesitant after the disappointment of the product-based film, Battleship. While the Transformers franchise has been monstrously successful (due more to computer artistry than product affection) more common are the dismal results seen from Bratz, Dungeons & Dragons, or Masters of the Universe. Last summer another fully immersed product-film was attempted, one apart from established children’s properties. The Internship was centered entirely on the corporate image of Google, by placing two middle-aged characters into the company’s workplace environment. Those appalled by these corporate-centric movies may be calmed at this particular failure.