Variety reports that Universal Pictures is getting ready to turn the cultural icon boardgame, Candy Land, into a movie. The Hasbro game will get morphed into a feature film by ‘Tropic Thunder’ writer Etan Cohen, and will be directed by Kevin Lima, who most recently brought us ‘Enchanted.’
Candy Land is a popular children’s board game and is woven around a simple story line about finding the lost king of Candy Land. The board consists of a winding, linear track made of 134 spaces, most of which are red, green, blue, yellow, orange or violet. The remaining few spaces are named locations such as Candy Cane Forest and Gum Drop Mountain, or characters like Queen Frostine and Gramma Nutt. The game was designed in the 1940s by Eleanor Abbott, while she was recovering from polio in San Diego, California. The game was bought by Milton Bradley Company (now owned by Hasbro) and first published in 1949. Hasbro produces several versions of the game and treats it as a brand. For example, they market Candy Land puzzles, a travel version, a PC game, and a handheld electronic version. A December, 2005 article in Forbes magazine analyzed the most popular American toys by decade, with help from the Toy Industry Association. Candy Land led the list for the 1940-1949 decade.
No word yet on when the film will go into production, but the proposed movie has been described as “comedy and family fare.”