Which Is More Irksome? A Monopoly Movie or Another Blair Witch Remake?

By Dustin Rowles | Film | April 10, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | Film | April 10, 2024 |

After guiding us through Barbie Land, producer Margot Robbie has decided that she wants to take on adapting Monopoly as a major motion picture. It’s hard to imagine even Robbie putting together a team to crack this story, which has been in development off and on for years, but if anyone can do it, it’s probably her.

Genuinely, I see her reteaming with her The Big Short director Adam McKay and Succession writer Jesse Armstrong to make a movie about late-stage capitalism that makes a villain out of Rich Uncle Pennybags played by a delightfully profane Brian Cox. A movie about wealthy landlords controlling all the real estate, renting them out on AirBnB, and driving up mortgages? In this economy? The screenplay writes itself. We just need a hero (Margot Robbie) to buy up all the WeWork office space, turn it into apartments, and flood the market to drive down prices and de-gentrify Monopoly-land.

Robbie’s company LuckyChap and her partners Tom Ackerley and Josie McNamara are producing along with Hasbro Entertainment. According to the studio, Monopoly is the world’s most popular board game brand, with 99 percent global awareness. Ubiquity, apparently, is its chief selling point.

I’m honestly more interested in that than the other horror news out of CinemaCon this week: Jason Blum and Blumhouse are resurrecting The Blair Witch Project for a new generation, apparently one distinct from the generation that largely dismissed 2016’s Blair Witch, which I recall was … not terrible. Jason Blum is the appropriate producer here, as he’s also the guy responsible for Blair Witch set in a home: The Paranormal Activity movies. Does anyone really want to revisit the woods of Maryland to watch some film students get tormented by a supernatural entity? Does no one remember how annoying they were?

The more pressing question is: Which of these impending cinematic abominations is likely to be the more irksome viewing experience? On the one hand, you have the prospect of watching rich idiots play demented capitalist Candy Land for two hours. On the other, you have the dread of yet another reheated helping of found-footage horror featuring a guy peeing in a corner getting brained by an unseen ghost.

It’s not a close call. Until she proves untrustworthy, give me the Margot Robbie adaptation.

Source: Variety, Variety