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‘Monsterpocalypse’ Movie Rejected By Tim Burton, To Be Directed By ‘Evil Dead’s Fede Alvarez

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 04:51 PST, May 28, 2016

Monsterpocalypse was once “just” a board game, but soon it will be so much more. According to Den of Geek, the kaiju themed board game will be moving forward with its own movie adaptation.

Monsterpocalypse is a board game from Privateer Press that pits humans in robot suits against monsters. The project of adapting Monsterpocalypse for the big screen has been in production limbo for a long time. The closest it has ever gotten to production in the past was back in 2010, when Tim Burton was rumored to direct the movie along with John August as the screenwriter. Tim Burton, despite described as a miss more than a hit nowadays, is still someone fans would have loved seeing as the visionary behind the film.

All hope seemed to be lost when Guillermo Del Toro went on to direct the phenomenal Pacific Rim, which had very similar themes to the board game. Now the good news has come for fans of the Monsterpocalypse board game; the project is officially back. The board game features big monsters fighting each other and contains numerous expansion packs providing fans with a vast selection of beasts to enhance their gameplay. Monsterpocalypse fans are very interested to see which of the game’s monsters will feature in the film version.

The director of the Evil Dead remake, Fede Alvarez, is on board to direct the Monsterpocalypse film. Apart from directing, Fede Alvarez is also set to co-write the movie with Rodo Sayagues. According to Yahoo!, the rights to the film were nabbed by Warner Bros. in a heated bidding war.

The rights were initially up for grabs with various studios, including Dreamworks and Sony bidding for it. The bidding escalated into six and seven-figure bidding prices for the rights. Rumors are circulating that the new film package is a substantially different take from the previous version, as well as Pacific Rim, while retaining the core theme of a battle between humans and giant monsters.

Fede Alvarez has already demonstrated how perfectly suited he is for the Monsterpocalypse film through his regular works in the horror and robot subgenres. Alvarez made his breakthrough debut with the popular short Panic Attack! which also featured giant robots.

In the short, giant robots were attacking the South American city of Montevideo, which is also the hometown of Fede Alvarez. His work on the short was noteworthy enough that it gained him a seat in the director’s chair for the Evil Dead remake. He also has his latest horror film coming out August 26, Don’t Breathe.

Watch the spectacular short here.

According to Hit Fix, board game movies have had a reputation for being mediocre at best. The childhood favorite of many, Jumanji, was not so well received by critics but earned a good $262 million at the worldwide box office. Outside of Jumanji, Battleship was a box office flop and a critical failure. The horror movie Ouija, which was a critical failure, was reported to make $100 million despite the budget being $5 million.

The Monsterpocalypse film is based on a board game featuring two giant kaiju battling it out on a big board until one of them drops, so that does not leave as much plot as a successful film would undoubtedly need. Monsterpocalypse needs to deliver nothing less than the board game delivers, and that is the exciting spectacle of imagining giants battle it out. The scale of the film also comes into question because Pacific Rim has already created a blockbuster in a similar vein. Can Monsterpocalypse get it right, too? The outlook is very promising for Monsterpocalypse fans with Fede Alvarez on board, as he has already shown his passion for directing a titanic, giant-sized beatdown.

Monsterpocalypse was created by Matt Wilson, who is represented by Allison Binder and Rick Genow at Stone Genow and Heitmann Entertainment’s Tarik Heitmann. Alvarez is represented by WME, Anonymous Content, and Jack Tyerman.

[Photo by NextMars/shutterstock.com]

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