Universal pulls Hasbro's Ouija from trash heap

After jettisoning most of the Hasbro-branded projects, Universal has decided to try and give Ouija another try –at a helleva lot cheaper price. The old version, which had McG on board as director, had a budget north of $100 million -this new one is said to be around $5 million or so. Universal is looking at the success of Chronicle and Project X –the new sub-genre of “found” footage films- to give Ouija another try. Both Chronicle and Project X were moderately budgeted films, $15 million and $12 million respectively, with no recognizable named actors. Both made their money back on the opening weekends, with Chronicle taking in $22 million and Project X $21 million. So with those films successes in mind, Universal will create a “found” footage story around Hasbro’s classic game. Which is just fine by me, by the way, ‘cause I’ll probably not see it anyways. After the Blair Witch Project, I swore I never see one of these types of films again. That was until Chronicle, and I swore again. While I give kudos to the actors for trying their hardest to make us care for anyone, anybody, the scripts weakness comes through because the story never made clear who the main protagonist was –Andrew or Matt? Along with another character’s death, which came across as pointless, and extremely confusing –giving me the impression that it was either a late add-on or just poorly edited. Project X just looks ugly in both content and execution, designed to fulfill 15 year-old boy’s misogynistic fantasy that women are objects to be degraded and that men will always get their way. Of course, there are women here who allow them to be treated this way, which is just another sad bookmark in the pages of history about the mistreatment of women by men and their fellow women.