The last time there was news of a Ouija board movie, I took it as an opportunity to refresh us all on those hasbro and toy properties that were being bandied about for a while. It appeared that most of the films in question had stalled or weren’t making much noise, and yet Ouija has a date set and is moving right along! Battleship recently wrapped production in Louisiana, so there is that film too, but that’s more of a portable, plastic-peg-based, modular naval combat simulation system (PPPBMNCSS…?), so perhaps it only sort of counts.
In any event, the interesting thing about the Ouija film is not that the studio has set a late 2012 release date of November 9th, but that the studio hasn’t apparently heard pitches from directors like Pierre Morel and Sylvain White, Scot Stewart, and John Moore and they’ve all failed to get hired for the project. According to Heat Vision, Universal/Platinum Dunes is playing picky and looking for someone very good who can handle what they believe is a four-quadrant supernatural adventure centering around a family, with influences from The Mummy and Indiana Jones.”
So between the directors of Taken, The Losers/Stomp The Yard, Legion/Priest, and Flight of the Phoenix respectively, Universal has not heard a pitch that’s made them happy. Last week brought a new round of pitches from McG and Breck Eisner (who Nick interviewed in truly legendary fashion for The Crazies), and it’s apparently these two directors who actually have a shot and are competing for the job. There’s a very obvious joke about how much easier spelled McG’s name is on a Ouija board. I will wryly allude to it rather than actually make the joke, and then I get the benefit of having thought of it, without the corniness of actually delivering it. Right?
Got a good pitch for how to handle the Ouija movie that you want to sneak in before they choose one of those guys? Know/blowing someone at Universal or Platinum Dunes? Make a call- the fewer letters in your name, the better…