14 Comments

The ability of executives to take the wrong lesson from every popular movie of the last 15 years is honestly impressive.

Expand full comment

"A proposed Polly Pocket movie with Lena Dunham directing and Emily In Paris star Lily Collins set to lead"

Ok, so I clearly went to hell at some point in the past, I just can't figure out when I died...

Expand full comment

I can't imagine the disappointment amongst the writers and producers when they find out "Magic Eightball" is about a toy.

Expand full comment

Chef's kiss to "Mass enshitification"

Expand full comment

If Uno is hit you can look forward to Tyler Perry’s Spades

Expand full comment

You could sort of extend this to the recent DUNGEONS & DRAGONS movie (which was a lot of fun). Not a toy, exactly, but owned by Hasbro and sort of toy-adjacent. Unlike the rest, though, that already comes with its own "universe" (several, in fact).

Expand full comment

I know very little about D&D the game but thought the movie was pretty fun. That Chris Pine is downright dreamy.

Expand full comment

Me patiently waiting for someone to make a movie based on Star Wars toys.

Expand full comment

Considering Disney made a whole movie described as "this is the movie that inspired the action figure Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story" I honestly wouldn't put it past them. (I actually really liked Lightyear).

Expand full comment

Magic cat effect (I also liked it.)

Expand full comment

Battleship was on the other night and yeah that was bad. The old timey battleship vets, the shoehorned grid and alien ship jumping from point-to-point. Everyones acting capabilities. I guess more of this please.

Expand full comment

Mattel and CAA have had been doing this sort of shit since back in Battleship days, like "Real Steel" was supposed to be Rockem Sock'em robots but somehow that fell through. Also this article, 1st bit, about Thomas the Tank Engine; "Thomas the Tank Engine Lives in a Totalitarian Dystopia" if they make THAT fucking movie I'm all in https://www.cracked.com/article_19673_6-insane-but-convincing-theories-childrens-pop-culture.html.

Expand full comment

Adding to that list of optioned properties that will likely never be movies - the Daniel Kaluuya Barney movie was announced in 2019, and has only brought us this incredible quote when he was doing press for Judas and the Black Messiah:

"Barney taught us, 'I love you, you love me. Won't you say you love me too?' That's one of the first songs I remember, and what happens when that isn't true? I thought that was really heartbreaking. I have no idea why but it feels like that makes sense. It feels like there's something unexpected that can be poignant but optimistic. Especially at this time now, I think that's really, really needed."

Anyway, remember how Get Out inspired a lot of socially conscious horror movies that were pretty bad (Antebellum was the nadir)? I'm still waiting on the post-mortem for Candyman, which wasn't terrible, but felt like three different movies mashed together with Let's Say The Themes Out Loud dialogue.

Expand full comment

your mentioning the song lyrics reminded me of the parody song

"I love you

You love me

Let's go out and kill Barney

With a Shotgun

Bang Bang

Barney's on the floor

No more purple Dinosaur"

Expand full comment