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Monopoly Movie Concept Was Inspired by Alice in Wonderland

by Alex Billington
November 12, 2009
Source: Hero Complex

Somehow we missed this news yesterday. Or maybe I just didn't want to write about it, you'll see why in just a minute. We've known, for nearly a year now, that Ridley Scott is attached to one day direct a Monopoly movie. Yes, a movie based on a popular board game that doesn't really have a story (well, not a good one at least). But until now, we haven't known how they'd do it, what the story would be. Yesterday, Hero Complex published an article talking with producer Frank Beddor about the Monopoly movie and how he originally pitched the story to Sir Ridley. And it's not that great. Or at least it doesn't sound good on paper. Read on!

I don't really know who Frank Beddor is, but as he himself explains: "I wrote the story that got Hasbro excited and I attached Ridley Scott." So it sounds like he's the right guy to get all the details from. "I had a pretty interesting take and it got Sir Ridley interested." So what is his plan? Well, it sounds a little bit like Alice in Wonderland, where a Monopoly addict ("the world record for playing is 70 straight days – over 1,600 hours – and he wanted to try to convince his friends to help him break that world record") wakes up in the Monopoly world after wishing for that with a Chance card (cheesy, right?). Here's how he explains it:

"They have this big world and this game -- it’s the most famous board game in the world -- and it just really came out of the whole 'Alice' thing. I took the approach of thinking of the main character falling down a rabbit hole and into a real place called Monopoly City ... It was the re-engineering of 'Alice in Wonderland' that got me thinking and then with this it came around full circle and I was able to utilize that. That’s a big world. They were searching for that."

"He walks outside and he’s in this very vibrant place, Monopoly City, and he’s just come out of a Chance Shop. As it goes on, he takes on the evil Parker Brothers in the game of Monolopy. He has to defeat them. It tries to incorporate all the iconic imageries -- a sports car pulls up, there's someone on a horse, someone pushing a wheelbarrow -- and rich Uncle Pennybags, you're going to see him as the maître d' at the restaurant and he's the buggy driver and the local eccentric and the doorman at the opera. There's all these sight gags."

See what I mean? It sounds pretty bad, but then I think about Ridley Scott, and the fact that he's on-board, which means he must have seen something in that pitch. And if the guy behind Blade Runner and Alien and Gladiator saw something in that and thought he could bring it to life in a wonderful way, then I'm still all for it, despite the premise sounding a bit hokey. Though all that could change. "Things will change, it's been a couple of years since I came up with all that. I did my job where I created this world so they could get really excited and get Ridley excited," Beddor explains. You never know, it could be a bit different by now.

So there you have it. Beddor gives a better rundown over on Hero Complex, but doesn't really say where the story goes from that introduction, but I think we can all imagine anyway. So knowing that, does a Monopoly movie, directed by Ridley Scott, still sound interesting? Or does it just sound like a big flop in the making?

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