view-master.jpg

Oh jeez. One time, when I was in college (that’s right, COLLEGE) I went to see John Waters talk about his career and answer audience questions. At one point, someone asked him a question about Edith Massey, who played Edie in Pink Flamingos. John Waters said that when you rode in the car with Massey, she would provide a manic, uninterrupted commentary of everything that she saw. “Blue car fire hydrant yellow house big dog wool skirt red car red car white car oak tree pretty bird white house.” I feel like Hollywood is like that now, except every time they see something, they make it into a movie. How else to explain thinking that you could possibly pull a compelling and meaningful narrative out of a fucking VIEW-MASTER?

From the HollywoodReporter:

Remember View-Master, the Fisher-Price toy with those little 3D picture discs of mountains, rivers and caverns that you could rotate through a viewfinder? Well, DreamWorks is in negotiations to acquire movie rights to the toy from Mattel (which owns Fisher-Price) and has asked Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to do some “Transformers”-style magic on it.

Story specifics are being kept under wraps, though Kane, who tweeted his involvement during the holiday weekend, said, “It’ll be like the old ’80s Amblin movies: ‘Goonies,’ ‘Young Sherlock’ … in that vein.” That post has been taken down. Amblin-style movies has been the modus operandi of the Kurtzman-Orci banner.

DreamWorks is hoping to make a family-friendly movie.

That last sentence is my favorite. “Dreamworks is hoping to make an NC-17 fuckfest.”

The thing is, the View-Master is just a plastic stereo-opticon for children. That’s like making a movie about an old penny arcade machine and trying to do some “Transfomers”-style magic on it. (SIDENOTE: what is “Transformers”-style magic? Making something incomprehensible and unbearable to watch?) That’s like making a movie about an old carnival fortune-telling machine. That will never work!

Actually, it’s more like making a movie about an Easy Bake Oven, a script for which I am sure is sitting on some assistant’s desk somewhere. “We’ve got to raise $50,000 with these lightbulb muffins or we’ll have to leave the Goondocks.” Sold. Low to high millions.

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Comments (23)
  1. I’m so pleased there’s finally a market for my knitted pot holder script.

  2. “We’ve got to raise $50,000 with these lightbulb muffins or we’ll have to leave the Goondocks.” zing!

    “Hey you guyyyyyyyys!” – Creepy Crawler? Sloth.

  3. The Mind of the Life  |   Posted on Jul 7th, 2009

    Clearly the only place to go from here is Pogs: The Movie About That Stacking Game That Was Kinda Cool in 1996.

  4. I’m still hoping for a Lite-Brite 3D movie.

  5. The only plot I’ve been able to imagine so far has been an Are You Afraid of the Dark-style film wherein a youngster happens upon an old View-Master which lets him see horrific events that happen in the near future, and it is up to him to find a way to stop it. I’m sure that’s a story that has never been explored in TV or film?

  6. “Coupon! The Movie,” is seeming less ridiculous each and every day.

  7. What about Boglins? Remember them?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcor3EbCnP4

    That would be kick ass!

  8. Funtastik  |   Posted on Jul 7th, 2009

    “”Dreamworks is hoping to make an NC-17 fuckfest.”

    I burst into laughter at my desk. My job isn’t supposed to be funny.

  9. I hear that Patrick Stewart iis signed on to play the View- Master

  10. “Next Summer, FUN is on the menu! Brendan Fraser and Liv Tyler in Hungry Hungry Hippos:The Movie.”

  11. From the makers of “ViewMaster: The Movie: Full Throttle” comes “Etch-a-Sketch: All Shook Up”. “Curved lines? Where we’re going we don’t need curved lines.”

  12. ModernMANdroid  |   Posted on Jul 7th, 2009

    Keep making jokes, but in a year all of these ideas will be R E A L !!!

  13. I can’t wait for the feature-film-turned-Broadway Musical!

  14. I can’t wait for “The Game of Life: The Movie.” The script literally writes itself, all you have to do is spin the wheel.

    • Carrie  |   Posted on Jul 7th, 2009

      Yes, like Jumanji but way way more dull. You spin a number and instead of killer bees or an elephant stampede you make the Dean’s list or get your roof patched. Box office gold!

  15. It’ll be in 3-D, right?

  16. Toy Box Office Poison  |   Posted on Jul 7th, 2009

    SLINKY: The Downward Spiral – 2012

  17. Guys, let’s not count our chickens before they hatch. (what i mean is, some birds are so weak and underdeveloped that they just die in their shell and are never born.)

  18. Idea Man  |   Posted on Jul 7th, 2009

    Movie Pitch Movie: The Movie

    Too meta?

  19. Idea Man  |   Posted on Jul 7th, 2009

    Movie Pitch Meeting: The Movie

    Too meta?

  20. Idea Man  |   Posted on Jul 7th, 2009

    Movie Pitch Meeting: The Movie

    Too meta?

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