Rihanna
By Borys Kit and Kim Masters – The Hollywod Reporter
As Universal’s “Battleship” steams toward a start date this month, the pricey adaptation of the Hasbro board game is entering deep, treacherous waters. With a budget of $200 million or more and no major movie stars on board, the project is raising eyebrows among industry insiders who question whether this expensive gamble will pay off.
“It’s a big bet like many, many big bets from many studios,” Universal chairman Adam Fogelson acknowledged to THR. “We will be nowhere near the high point and nowhere near the low point of what people are spending.”
Taylor Kitsch
But several huge questions hover over “Battleship,” which begins filming in 15 days in Hawaii, that simply didn’t apply to other big-ticket movies. In “Battleship,” Universal has a director, Peter Berg, with some experience in action films, but he’s not a brand name in the genre. And the concept is based on a board game that has sold more than 100 million units and raked in $1 billion-plus. This comes at a time when some studio execs are questioning whether the public is tiring of the presold concepts to which Hollywood has been clinging.
By far the most significant entry from the relatively new regime of Fogelson and co-chairman Donna Langley, “Battleship” is based on the Hasbro game about naval strategy that’s been around since World War I. Berg has come up with a modern twist: making “Battleship” a movie about an alien invasion at sea.
Fogelson denied the project was ever in jeopardy and said the studio is firmly committed based on Berg’s vision for the film. Berg, whose previous movie was 2008′s “Hancock” for Sony, is the son of a naval historian, and he wrote a high school essay about how the Japanese could have won the Battle of Midway. He also directed the 2004 feature “Friday Night Lights” and 2007′s “The Kingdom,” both for Universal.
Fogelson maintains that “Battleship” doesn’t need a big star and in fact is well-cast. The topliners are Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna, making her feature debut.
“Taylor is on the short list of actors in this range,” Fogelson said. “Rihanna has no shortage of opportunities and choices.”
Fogelson is not worried about audiences warming to a movie based on a board game, either.
“You’re talking about a property that worldwide has more awareness than most, if not all, of Hasbro properties that preceded it,” he said. “Worldwide, more people have played Battleship than played with Transformers.” The first two films in the latter franchise have grossed more than $1.5 billion worldwide for the studio, and a third is shooting in Chicago.
Fogelson said Universal was careful in evaluating specific aspects of the game that would work for the film. “The game has not included a battle between Earth and alien forces,” he acknowledged, but he cited several aspects of it that will be reflected in the film.
“There’s the fact that you can’t see your opponent, the underlying emotional reasons behind who plays the game and how they play the game,” Fogelson said. “There’s absolutely a way within the story that’s been constructed here to take advantage of the game’s name and elements that will make the movie fun.”
One way Universal has kept “Battleship” from going over the brink was organizing the shoot in a way that keeps it on land as much as possible.
At this point, the plan calls for only five days of production on the water, with the remainder of the five-week shoot in Hawaii land-based. The rest of the sea action will be shot on soundstages in Baton Rouge, La., and the production will be CGI-heavy.
Read the full story by Borys Kit and Kim Masters HERE
