McG To Direct Hasbro’s Adventure Film ‘Ouija’
Right before the holidays,we reported the director’s chairfor the big budget adventure filmOuijawas down to two directors: Breck Eisner and McG. Well,Charlie’s Angelshave defeatedThe Craziesand Universal Pictures has chosenMcGto direct the film, based on the Hasbro board game, written byEdward KitsisandAdam Horowitz(Lost,TRON: Legacy) and scheduled for release August 08, 2025. There’s more after the break.
Aswe’ve reported in the past,Ouijaisn’t going to be a supernatural film, as one would surmise based on nature of the board game. Instead, it’ll use the board game – in which invisible forces are supposed to guide your hands to send messages from beyond our plain of existence- as a building block to form a large scale, family adventure movie.
It’s certainly in vogue to hate on McG, as one can tell by the comments on nearly every single story that mentions his name, but I really am not against his directingOuija. I’ll admit he does not have an eye for the minutia of filmmaking, such as performance and tone, but what he does have is a great sense of scale and that’s key in an adventure movie. Even his so-called “smaller movies,” likeWe Are Marshall, feel big. They exhibit scope and aim to entertain. Now, he might fail more often than he succeeds (Terminator Salvationis one of the biggest disappointments in my film going memory) but given the right material, I think he has the capacity to make a really fun film.
Plus he’s not alone. Besides his geek-certified screenwriters, McG will have the Hasbro brass and Platinum Dunes crew (including Michael Bay) behind him, plus he should be able to extract some pointers from Universal’s first Hasbro movie, Peter Berg’sBattleship, which hits theaters in May 2012.
Shooting is scheduled to start this summer once McG finishesThis Means Warwith Reese Witherspoon, Tom Hardy and Chris Pine.
Okay, let the hate rain down. Does no one think McG can make a fun adventure movie on par with something likeThe Mummy? That’s not too much to ask for, is it? We’re not talkingRaiders of the Lost Arkhere. Maybe just a solidPirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
