It says so right here in Variety. What’s more, the movie based on the naval-combat board game has an honest-to-God good director attached, Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights). (Taylor Kitsch is in it! Riggins!)
OK, I had a snarky post all ready to go. (Imagining the tearful romantic scene before the climactic battle: “You sank… my heart.”) And, you know I kid Battleship, but after all Shakespeare made a classic tragedy out of Othello! [Rimshot.] I can’t wait to see Michael Moore’s Monopoly! [Less enthusiastic rimshot. Awkward silence, and the clinking of waitresses collecting empty glasses.]
But it turns out that making movies of board games is already an honest-to-God thing. And has been for some time. Not just the ’80s adaptation of Clue. There is (or was) a Monopoly movie: Ridley Scott’s attached. There is a Candy Land movie project that does not involve Katy Perry and Snoop. You want more? Here’s more.
So OK, I’ll accept that this is a thing we do now, making movies from rides / toys / board games / things-you-remember-fondly-from-childhood. (I’m seeing Sir Ian McKellen as Cookie Jarvis in Cookie Crisp: Bowl of Destiny.) But it must be asked: Is Battleship the board game to make a movie of?
