Things are looking pretty good for the toy-based film genre right now thanks to Barbie basically saving the summer for all of film. That, however, hasn’t stopped Hasbro from moving forward with the sale of its film studio eOne. The studio announced that they would be selling the film and TV studio to Lionsgate on Wednesday for $500 million, a deal that should be a win for both companies and also one that seems to have brought the long-dormant Monopoly movie back to life as was revealed in the announcement.
“Lionsgate’s management team is experienced in entertainment and adept at driving value, and we’re glad to have found such a good home for our eOne film & TV business,” Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks said. “We look forward to partnering with them, especially on a movie adaptation of Monopoly.”
Monopoly doesn’t exactly scream “movie adaptation” like Hasbro properties Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Battleship and Hasbro has been struggling to get a film off the ground for nearly a decade because of it with multiple stars and directors attached to the project over the years. The 2015 version of the film was set to be a grand adventure about a boy learning what truly matters in life but that seems pretty stale and obviously never truly got moving. However, given the raging success of Barbie, it’s clear that studios can take gambles on genre and style for toy adaptations and win big. Monopoly could end up something like that, possibly infused with social commentary on capitalism or a kind of satirical comedy along the lines of The Big Short.
Whatever this version of Monopoly turns out to be it will be a long time before we see Milburn Pennybags top-hatting his way across the screen as this isn’t even an official announcement of anything being worked on.
