This is not a late April Fools Day joke. Hasbro is making another one of their toys into a movie after the success of The Lego Movie. The latest subject? Play-Doh.
According to Deadline, 20th Century Fox is working with Hasbro to develop a live-action Play-Doh movie.
Currently in talks to direct is Paul Feig, known for directing comedies like Bridesmaids and The Heat. He's also directing the upcoming all-female Ghostbusters reboot. The film will be written by Jason Micallef, who doesn't have a whole lot of credits but wrote the 2011 Jennifer Garner comedy Butter.
It sounds pretty ridiculous, but attaching comedy names to a Hasbro property has worked before. The Lego Movie sounded like it could be a soulless attempt to sell toys, but with comedy directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller on board, it was one of the best animated films of that year, grossing $468 million worldwide. Hasbro no doubt hopes to repeat that sort of success here with Play-Doh.
Two important differences though: Lego was at least a property with some semblance of characters that you could tell a story with, where as the Play-Doh brand doesn't go far beyond clay blobs. Also, the fact that this is live-action rather than animated makes this kind of a different animal than Lego Movie.
This will be another in a series of movies based on Hasbro properties recently. In addition to The Lego Movie we have also seen Battleship and Ouija. There's also the Jem And The Holograms movie which is currently in development according to Variety.
Are all these movies based on toys a sign of Hollywood running out of ideas and latching on to any pre-established property? Or could taking such a basic concept and putting it in the hands of creative people, like with The Lego Movie, actually make for some pretty solid projects?
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