Would You Go See a Hungry Hungry Hippos Movie?
Nothing sells a family movie like a whole lotta ball swallowing. So it was only a matter of time before someone decided to make Hungry Hungry Hippos into a feature-length film. Sure, it might sound strange to finance a movie that centers around plastic hippopotami, but where you might ask “why?” Hollywood looks you right in the eye, gobbles some white marbles, and asks “why not?”
Shaun Monroe at Whatculture! has compiled a list of “10 Things You’ll Never Believe Are Being Made Into Movies.” While some aren’t super surprising (Angry Birds), others are slightly more confusing. For example, CAA signed “Rubik’s Cube” as a client several years ago in the hopes of taking the cube to the big screen, surely pleasing all Hollywood hopefuls in search of representation. If a plastic square can get an agent, what does that say about you? Unless the film’s plot revolves around an impatient person secretly peeling off the stickers, I have no idea what it could be about and it’ll surely be a waste of money. But I’m sure someone felt that same way about R.I.P.D. several years ago (“What could this movie do that Ghost Dad didn’t?”), and look at it now. Proudly bringing stupid to a theater near you this Friday.
There’s a lot of talk these days about big Hollywood box office failures and what they mean for the film industry.Basically, people want to know what went wrong and why studios are continuing to finance crappy movies when good directors are threatening to head to Netflix and Amazon.com in order to produce original content. They’re good questions to ponder when you’re not watching R.I.P.D this weekend. Will movies begin to go the way of House of Cards? Will we soon sit down at our laptops to watch the latest releases as opposed to sitting in a theater? And if this happens, if the filmmaking model begins to evolve alongside the television model, does it mean we’ll never see the hippos take to the big screen?
