Props to Shakespeare: O2

You know what's great about William Shakespeare? Fuckin' lots. Everyone loves him. College professors. Teachers. Hipsters. Critics. Actors. You mention Shakespeare, and brother, Flint wasn't in like this. Second, he's old. Dead for centuries old. Which means adapting his work is free. Also, his themes and plays are totally still relevant and accessible to people of our times according to a Google search I just did. In other words: Money in the bank, baby!

Now, we have to be discerning, right, because everyone does Hamlet. Boring. Everyone does Romeo and Juliet. Boring. Everyone does Macbeth. Boring. Know what everyone doesn't do? Othello. Now we don't want to go crazy adapting that to a movie because haters wanna hate and people get mad when you mess with a classic, so instead you do a sequel. We call it, get this, O2.

The O stands for Othello.

Now I can hear you saying, "But wait, didn't everyone die at the end?" Yes. We can work around that. What if... we set it in space? Now we can have cloning. Oh? What? Othello just killed Desdemona and then himself? Fuckin' cloned. Done. But that's still messing with a classic, and believe you me, you do not want a Shakespeare nerd mad at you. So we keep the original exactly as is, same dumb speaking and everything. Only he gets cloned two thousand years in the future. Now of course, if we bring him back, we have to bring back Desdemona and Iago too. You gotta have a love interest and if we already have a villain why waste time coming up with a new one?

So here's what we do, because we gotta have action, explosions, crazy shit like that. I mean, we're in f'n space here. Let's not let that golden opportunity go to waste. Iago gets cloned first. "That's dumb," I can hear you saying. Know what I say?

"You're dumb, now sit down and shut the fuck up! What has two thumbs and pitched a thousand blockbusters? This guy. What has two thumbs and paid to see them? You. Get the picture? Good."

Iago gets cloned because the space courts have decided, after reviewing his case, that he got off light. People who get off light, especially people who are dead or sentenced to multiple life sentences get cloned and are forced to serve all of their terms. So space court says Iago needs to be punished more. He gets cloned and they lock him up in space prison for clones with other bad guys like Space Hitler and Space Castro and Space Whoever We Hate At The Time. That's right. We've got Space Nazis, Space Commies, and Space Terrorists. You know shit's gonna get real, amirite?

Now Iago is a sneaky persuasive bastard, and we're going to keep him talking in Shakespeare speech because it will really help the audience to hate him. Well, he gets to talking and because he's so slick and charming, people start listening. Soon, he's got his finger in the space president's ear and bam! he's out of jail and conning people. He's taken over, and now he's seized production of the air supplies (because this is space and you need air in space).

The O stands for Oxygen (Get it? It's called O2 like air and like Othello 2).

Of course, some space rebels realize what's what and they go and clone Othello, who has a serious vendetta against Iago. Did I mention that Othello's a general? Not kidding. This is in Shakespeare's original play. It's like he handed us a gift. If Othello's already a general, then the Shakespeare die hards will praise the movie for it's authenticity, which means we'll get all the rich white people to show up, who will buy the shit out of O2 merchandising.

Right, so Othello starts commanding an army, blowing shit up. Nuking worlds. Like you do. But we need a love interest, so Iago clones Desdemona, only he brainwashes her, right? So she's all like "Othello, I love you. You're so great. Let's go do this thing over here." He's using her to throw Othello off track, and get this, to nuke anyone who stands in Iago's way. Once again, Iago tricks Othello, only this time his wife actually IS deceiving him. Plot twist! Also, mad hot reuniting sex scene (maybe multiple Desi clones for a reuniting orgy scene? What do you think?)

So the whole time, we think Othello's getting duped, and things are at their worst. Iago controls all the breathable air in the universe and he's charging crazy high prices so people can't afford it. But then he pretends he's being generous by saying that he'll give the air away for free to anyone who supports him for Space Emperor (which is higher than Space President). That's when Othello takes his cybernetic squad of super soldiers called MOORS (Mutant Omega Operations Robot Soldier) who charge Iago's station and kick ass, killing people and taking names. As the soldiers are blowing the crap out of everything, Othello gets into the throne room where Iago has installed himself and standing between them is Desdemona, who Iago has given ninja implants. It looks like Othello is going to have to kill her again if he wants his vengeance.

But wait! Plot twist AGAIN! Othello gives an impassioned speech about love and forgiveness to Desdemona, which we think will win her over. It doesn't. In reality, Desi isn't double crossing him. She's TRIPLE crossing Iago! Othello cloned her ahead of time and only made Iago THINK he controlled her so Othello could get to the bottom of Iago's plans. Then the two of them team up against Iago, except, oh shit! Iago's got cybernetic killer implants too. He's got finger spikes, gun arms, force fields. All kinds of crazy shit.

Big ass fight. Meanwhile MOORS are blowing up everything else. Spaceships flying, lasers, rockets, exposions. Then Iago says "You can't win. Right now all the world bows to me because they're sucking on my air!"

"Yeah?" says Othello. "Well, suck on this!" Then he shoots his laser pistol and blows up an air tank (because O2 is flammable). The room starts exploding. Iago goes "NOOOOOO!!!"

They run out as the space station explodes. Sex on the escape pod. Queue credits.

Did I mention Othello is black? Not only do we get to deal with contemporary issues like terrorism and democracy via capitalism, but we also get to deal with racism and interracial love (which the housewives love, let me tell you what).

It's got everything. It has sex. It has violence. It has drama. It has relevant issues and shit. It has plot twists. It has fucking Shakespeare. The high schools will all bring their students to watch because it's educational and shit. College students will to. Rich people. Poor people. Money in the bank!

Now, where do we sign to get this picture going?

Tic-Tac-Toe: Summer Blockbuster

So, I'm not sure if you guys have heard the buzz, but apparently Hollywood's gone nuts licensing board games for movies. Monopoly, Battleship, Candyland, even some crazy shit Monsterpocalypse game I've never heard of. 'course, that monster apocalypse thing has big ass monsters blowing cities to hell, which is never a bad thing in my book. Smells like money to me. And why not? It worked for Clue. It even worked for Chess (kinda, if you consider producing anything on Broadway "a success"). That's not even a licensed product. If the directors were smart, that movie Twister would have been about young co-eds crawling and contorting all over each other instead of middle aged people chasing tornadoes in Kansas.

These movies work because they have product recognition. They have nostalgia. You see them. You remember being a kid. You remember playing, having fun. Opening that box on Christmas. Well, Hollywood has finally realized it's time to exploit that sentimental shit. And the only thing better than exploiting someone's childhood memories to make a little money is not having to pay licensing fees to do it.

Take a look at Real Steel, which you can't tell me isn't Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots with the serial numbers filed off. You mean you control a red robot and I control a blue robot and we make them kick the shit out of each other in a boxing ring trying to knock each other's heads off? Nah, I don't see the difference at all. Kudos to you Shawn Levy and Hugh Jackman. Now THAT's how you make a movie based on a trade-marked product without paying royalties or licensing fees! Skimping out on those inconvenient legal agreements with Mattel means mo' money, mo' money, mo' money when those summer box office profits roll in, especially considering Mattel is now having trouble moving forward with their actual Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots movie.

Which leads us to my brilliant idea. What about a movie based on Tic-Tac-Toe? No licensing. It's the first game you really learned. And as abstract a game as it is, you can literally do anything with it! Wanna make it about guys buying up all the property on a city block so they can make money off of kickbacks from a new subway line? Sure. How about the land grab of the 1800s? That'd be lame, but you could do it. You know, if you didn't care about making money and instead focusing on that "art" nonsense that never turns a dime. But if you want a real winner, because let's not kid ourselves, we're here to make so much damn money we're wiping our ass with Ben Franklin's face, all praise America, you need to throw in some real box office bait: explosions and violence and witty one-liners and big tits and CGI.

Space. Some planet in the middle of no where but full of super rare minerals or something. Super oil. Pentalithum crystals. Unobtainium. Gold. Doesn't matter. Magic flying juice for all it really matters to the story. And the humans from... I dunno... the Xplorer Corps or Interplanetary Xpedition find the planet and want to take advantage of its rich whatever-the-hell deposits. (See, the X is both X-treme and other stupid spellings that teenagers with money they're itching to spend like AND it's X for Tic-Tac-Toe, as in X goes first. Also X marks the spot if we want to work Space Pirates in. Pirates are still big, right? Hell, let's get Johnny Depp on the line for a cameo tie in. Space Captain Xylon Sparrow, amirite?).

So we're steady taking and taking and taking, because, as Wall Street said, greed is good. Then those damn Original Inhabitants (like O, get it?) they fight us off. To boost grosses, I say they're a race of nothing but super hot women who don't believe in clothes. Now we find out as we're reaping the rewards of our hard earned space flight, that that this place is full of fissures or something. Weak continental crust. Fault lines. Whatever. And if we can just detonate a line of three bombs, it'll throw the area outta whack, earthquakes and crumbling cities and all that craziness. They all die. We win, they lose. More money for us. And of course, they know if they can get three in a row then it'll destroy our mining operations, collapsing our tunnels and mines and stuff. Yeah, I realize that from a purely practical, logical standpoint it really shouldn't matter who gets three first or where. Everybody loses. Cities would crumble regardless. Mines would collapse no matter who wins. But no one cares. I mean, science fiction, right? Suspension of disbelief. Besides, no one's going to notice an insignificant little plot hole like that. Sure, we could have the Originals planting anti-bomb devices, fault-stabilizers, or whatever the hell pseudo-science technobabble we can come up with, but nobody pays good money to see things NOT blow up, amirite?

Here's where the idea really shifts from profitable one-trick pony to golden franchise. After an hour and a half of soldiers and topless super models blowing up buildings with tanks and lasers and bombs and robots (everyone loves robots), how does it end? Like every game of Tic-Tac-Toe. In a draw. I smell a sequel. Or a million sequels.

We have robots, explosions, violence, sex, aliens, nudity, and endless opportunity to keep milking this cow for all it's worth, all while appealing to this ingrained childhood innocence that you don't have to pay Parker Brothers five million dollars for. Brilliant right? So how about we get this thing moving. I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to my toilet paper made of a hundred dollar bills.