Sony takes 'Risk' with board game

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Studio acquires bigscreen rights to Hasbro franchise

Sony Pictures Entertainment has its sights set on world domination, acquiring bigscreen rights to the board game Risk from Hasbro. SPE will produce the adaptation with Will Smith and James Lassiter's Overbrook shingle.

Property, which pits players against one another in a quest to annex all of the world's territories, has become desirable thanks to the box office success of the Paramount adaptations of Hasbro's Transformers and G.I. Joe.

"The strategic thinking and the tactical gambles that players must take in the game are what make Risk a classic, thoroughly engaging game," said Columbia prexy Doug Belgrad. Those elements translated into an action-packed, thrilling story are what will make this a uniquely exciting movie."

The toymaker's topper, Brian Goldner, and inhouse film exec Bennett Schneir will produce the actioner with Lassiter.

As Hollywood studios have become more risk-averse in recent years, toys with name recognition and limitless branding opportunities are being sought and developed as adaptations with A-list producers attached.

In recent years, William Morris and now WME -- which reps Hasbro -- has set up a number of properties on behalf of the company, including Monopoly, Ouija, Stretch Armstrong and Candyland.

Early last year, Hasbro inked a six-year pact with Universal to produce at least four movies. The studio recently tapped Peter Berg to helm "Battleship" and has already set its sights on July 1, 2011, to release the actioner.

The deal with Sony now enables Hasbro to get two large-scale military movies off the ground as high-profile tentpoles, with the resulting exposure at the megaplex hopefully upping interest in the toys the way "Transformers" and "G.I. Joe" helped boost sales for those brands this summer.

Hasbro already has a relationship with Overbrook, with the shingle developing two TV projects with the toymaker.

Risk was created in 1957 by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse as La Conquete du Monde (The Conquest of the World). Two years later, Parker Brothers published the game in the U.S. as Risk.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118010867.html?categoryId=13&cs=1&cache=false

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Overbrook has been moving its pieces with the Big ones!

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Sony Pictures Sets Scribe For 'Risk' As Board Game Heads For Bigscreen

Screenwriter John Hlavin has been set by Sony Pictures to write Risk, a contemporary global action thriller based on the venerable board game. Pic is a co-production between Hasbro Entertainment and Overbrook Entertainment, and the producers are Brian Goldner, Bennett Schneir and James Lassiter. Hlavin has written on The Shield, and his original script The Gunslinger for Warner Bros made the Black List. He scripted Underworld: New Dawn for Paramount, which will release early next year, and turned in a heist script to Steve Zaillian's Film Rites and DreamWorks. Risk was created by Albert Lamorisse, the French director of The Red Balloon in 1957. He called it La Conquete du Monde (The Conquest of the World). It was brought to the US by Parker Brothers two years later as Risk. Will the fact it was invented by a moviemaker keep Deadline commenters from sarcastically demanding new projects like Gnip Gnop: The Movie, the way they always do when I write about a board game transfer? We'll know soon enough. Hlavin's repped by UTA and Management 360.

Hasbro has set most of its film action at Universal, including the Peter Berg-directed Battleship and Stretch Armstrong.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/sony-pictures-sets-scribe-for-risk-another-board-game-heading-for-bigscreen/