The 63rd Cannes Film Festival starts today, but the very idea of jury head Tim Burton flipping through a treatment of “Monsterpocalypse” while gearing up to watch, oh, “Uncle Boonme” or “Certified Copy” is kind of hilarious/tragic.
So what is “Monsterpocalypse?” From what we gather (and no, we hadn’t heard of it either until now) it’s the dice-and-board game equivalent of “Godzilla.” There are game maps that represent cities, you populate it with pieces that resemble buildings and then you have two monsters duke it out and smash stuff up, we guess depending on dice rolls. And yes, if you’re thinking this is total hardcore nerd territory it is, but as a movie studio its easy to see why they’re interested: it’s a bunch of stuff getting smashed to hell and its probably an easy 3D sell. Cue Tim Burton.
The director behind terrible box office hit “Alice In Wonderland” is being sought by DreamWorks as the “creative catalyst” on the project (which we presume means producer or director though Mike Fleming at Deadline may want to clear up his poetic language here). And really, why not? Burton has already shown he’s willing to remove any stamp of his individual style in exchange for a faceless, soulless franchise and “Monsterpocalypse” has the makings to be an expensive waste of talent.
Bitterness aside, this project is in very, very early stages with only game creator Matt Wilson attached as a co-producer at this point. It remains to be seen how this project will eventually take shape.
