At one point, it looked as if Hasbro’s toy box would be spilling out into theaters as the toy company had paired with Universal to turn some of their best selling products into major motion pictures. While ‘Battleship’ made the journey, it’s didn’t really make much of a splash, so the other projects such as ‘Candyland’, ‘Monopoly’, and ‘Ouija’ lost their momentum. However, the last one managed to take a few baby steps forward in 2012 when ‘Boogeyman’ and ‘Knowing’ screenwriters Juliet Snowden and Stiles White signed on to pen and direct the once ‘Pirates of the Carribean’-esque picture turned low budget horror film for producers Jason Blum, Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, Brian Goldner, and Bennett Schneir. Now, yet another baby step has been taken as the production has landed some cast members.
‘Bates Motel’ star Olivia Cooke and ‘Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters’ star Douglas Smith will star alongside Daren Kagasoff of ‘The Secret Life of the American Teenager’ in a tale that “follows a group of teens playing with a Ouija board, making contact with an evil spirit, and desperately trying to close the door they’ve opened before meeting their own fate”.
After jumping from Universal to Paramount and back to Universal, ‘Ouija’ obviously didn’t make it’s original 2013 release date, but now the film is scheduled to start shooting next week in Los Angeles. As of right now, no other cast members or a new release date has been revealed.
What do you think about Universal Studios basing a horror movie around Hasbro’s Ouija Board? Does the plot sound like something that will have you hiding behind your covers? And which toy do you think has the best chance of getting it’s movie further developed after ‘Ouija’? Let us know in the comments.
Source: Deadline