Since the beginning of cinema books, plays, myths and legends have been adapted into great films. It’s standard practice really. But in more recent years film makers have begun to cast their nets a lot wider in an attempt to find new sources of inspiration. Today it seems that pretty much anything can be turned into a film, as shown by these four examples.
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1 Battleship (2012)
It’s been well documented that Peter Berg’s recent film Battleship is “loosely” based on the classic strategic board game of the same name. The game’s hardly full of action, so it’s far from an obvious source of inspiration for a Hollywood blockbuster.
Many critics have dismissed the film’s claim that it is based on the board game as a gimmick to try and sell tickets. It’s true that the only real similarity to the board game is that it has some battleships, but then again there’s not really much more too it.
If board game based movies are your kind of thing you might be interested to know that Ridley Scott has bought the rights to make a film about Monopoly and it’s rumoured that a script is being penned as we speak. Wow Ridley, that sounds awesome…
2 Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva (2009)
Making a film based on a video game can hardly be called unusual these days. However, it can be when it’s based on Professor Layton, a puzzle adventure game originally made for the Nintendo DS.
Originally the film was only shown in Japanese, but an English version has since been released in the United Kingdom and United States. Fans of the series will be very happy as the film features original characters, music and puzzles from the game. That’s a lot more than most movies based on video games can say for themselves!
3 Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a brilliant movie. And despite the fact that all the sequels are absolutely terrible the films have netted Disney a reported 4 billion dollars, with a fifth instalment still to come. No bad for story based on a theme park ride that first opened in 1967.
The fact that Pirates of the Caribbean is based on the popular ride first found at Disneyland California is no secret. It was continually publicised in the run up to the film’s release in 2003 which without doubt increased audience anticipation.
Anyone that’s been on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride will appreciate the scene in the movie where Johnny Depp is trying to get the attention of the dog that’s holding the keys to his jail cell. The pirates seen on the ride have been trying to do the same for the last 45 years!
4 Dreams (1990)
Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams is based on a series of real dreams the director has had at different stages of his life. The film essentially consists of eight separate stories although some of the characters and themes do overlap.
As you can probably guess the film is somewhat “arty” and focussed more on imagery than any real dialogue. It was shown at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival but wasn’t entered into any categories.