‘Monopoly’ Movie Revealed: Plot To Serve As Shitty ‘Alice In Wonderland’ Analogy

We’ve been spitballing what the actual premise of the mooted “Monopoly” movie will be for awhile now, wondering exactly how it would work and why Ridley Scott was interested in directing. Could it be a more realistic view of real-estate crazed competitors seizing a group of properties? Would it be closer to the futuristic version that Scott compared to “Blade Runner” with high stakes acquisitions occurring in a heightened new world? Perhaps we were too optimistic.

In a piece for the L.A. Times, “Monopoly” producer Frank Beddor talks about the genesis for the idea, and it turns out it’s “Alice In Wonderland” pretty much ripped off wholesale. “I took the approach of thinking of the main character falling down a rabbit hole and into a real place called Monopoly City,” he begins. “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.”

“I created a comedic, lovable loser who lives in Manhattan and works at a real estate company and he’s not very good at his job but he’s great at playing Monopoly. And 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. They think he is crazy. They kid him about this girl and they’re playing the game and there’s this big fight. And he’s holding a Chance card and after they’ve left he says, ‘Damn, I wanted to use that Chance card,’ and he throws it down. He falls asleep and then he wakes up in the morning and he’s holding the Chance card, and he thinks, ‘That’s odd.’”

Beddor’s only previous producing credits were on a cheapie Julia Stiles thriller called “Wicked” and “There’s Something About Mary,” so we wonder (fluffing) exactly what it is (fluffing) he’s been doing (fluffing) for the last ten years (fluffing) before he dropped this creative bombshell on us. We don’t care to excerpt from this section farther because frankly it’s a little depressing, but it does involve the protagonist waking up in Monopoly City where every day problems are reduced to Monopoly-isms, and he fights enemies known as the Parker Brothers while spending actual Monopoly money. We like the part in the article with Beddor’s subtle acknowledgment that Ridley Scott’s visual skill will save the premise.

But no, Beddor claims, it’s not about money. “Well it’s not about that; it can’t be just about the money. To me it’s more a metaphor for life, the taking of chances and this character through this process learns that he can do a lot of things. He’s completely brave and strategic and risk-taking while playing this game but in real life he’s a mess. He won’t roll the dice. That’s the character and journey he has to take.” We here at The Playlist get a lot of flack for being overly negative about so much, so we’re happy to let the premise speak for itself this time around. But, if you want to lay down a wager that Ridley Scott will actually make the aforementioned film, do so at your own risk.