'Ouija' Film Still Moving Forward

A few years ago, the board game company Hasbro signed a huge deal with Universal Pictures to produce some of their board games into big films. Coming out this year will be "Battleship", based off the popular game where you call out certain spots on your board and try to sink your opponents ships. There isn't much of a story in the game, but the film appears to be about aliens. We'll see how that one turns out. Two other popular games that were slated to be made were "Clue" (which was already a classic comedy film in the 80's) and "Ouija" (the board 'game' where you attempt to communicate with the dead.

Well a few years back both "Clue" and "Ouija" were given the ol' axe by Universal for budgetary reasons. Clue was supposed to be directed by "Pirated of the Caribbean" helmer Gore Verbinski (who just won an Oscar for his animated film starring Johnny Depp, "Rango"). Word is Verbinski is still attempting to make Clue, but nothing official has really been announced since the project was cancelled by Universal. It was said the film would be more of an international thriller. Which would be different then the original film which was pretty reliable to the original game.

The Ouija Board Game has actually been featured in several films already, and there have been old 80's movies that centered around the game. So this idea would not be entirely original either, but it would be a more direct interpretation of the actual Hasbro game. A few years ago, a script was written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and then received two re-writes. It was originally rumored to be a "family adventure" so it would have been something kid friendly I'm guessing? The budget back then was around 100 million dollars. Well it announced yesterday that Ouija is back on track WITH Universal but with a budget now of 5 million dollars. I don't know if the original script is still on board or not however, or if they are going a whole new route.

The story I read said Universal may be hoping to go the success route of recent low budget horror flicks like "Paranormal Activity" or "The Last Exorcism". I think turning the Ouija Board game into a movie is actually a cool idea, but it's been done before, so I don't know what they could do with it, other than making it more current. I just hope it's a 'scary' movie and not a 'family adventure' like first planned.