Monopoly Movie Priority After Lionsgate’s eOne Acquisition from Hasbro
By Movieguide® Contributor
Lionsgate has acquired Entertainment One (eOne) from Hasbro for roughly $500 million, making the long-anticipated Monopoly movie one of the company’s top priorities.
“This sale fully aligns with our strategy, and we are pleased to bring the process to a successful close,” said Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks. “Lionsgate’s management ream is experienced in entertainment and adept at driving value, and we’re glad to have found such a good home for our eOne film and TV business.”
With the deal, Lionsgate will only acquire the rights to eOne’s IPs unrelated to Hasbro’s brand. THE ROOKIE, YELLOWJACKETS and NAKED AND AFRAID franchises will join Lionsgate along with nearly 6,500 other titles, while Hasbro IPs like PEPPA PIG and PJ MASKS remain with the toy company.
Although Hasbro will hold the rights to popular brands like Transformers, Power Rangers and even Monopoly, they plan to partner with studios in the future to create movies and TV shows for these brands rather than produce them in-house.
“As part of the sale, we expect to move to an asset-lite model for future live action entertainment, relying on licensing and partnerships with select co-productions,” Cocks said.
To begin this new era of its entertainment production, Hasbro “look[s] forward to partnering with [Lionsgate], especially on a movie adaptation of Monopoly.”
A Monopoly movie has been in the works since 2007 when director Ridley Scott expressed an interest in bringing the board game to the big screen. After various drafts of a script, however, Scott scrapped the idea.
However, Hasbro picked up the threads in 2015 and tasked Gattaca Andrew Niccol with writing a Monopoly “film for the ages.” Nothing more was heard about the project until Tim Story and Kevin Hart came on in 2019. No progress has been made on the movie since then.
With Lionsgate’s acquisition of eOne, the movie seems closer to production than ever, especially with the recent success that video games and toy movies have enjoyed. And the famous board game might finally make its way to theaters.
Movieguide® previously reported:
According to Hasbro’s latest announcement, they will look to focus investment on gaming, direct to consumer, franchise brands and licensing.
Popular brands for the company include Peppa Pig, Transformers, Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, My Little Pony, Power Rangers, Play-Doh as well as board games like Monopoly, Clue, and Sorry!.
“Following our recent Investor Day where we introduced our new branded entertainment strategy, Blueprint 2.0, we received inbound interest from several parties for the part of the eOne television and film business that while valuable is not core to our go-forward strategy. This interest informed our decision to explore a sale process,” Cocks said.
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