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.
