CANDYLAND writers discuss concept further
Earlier we reported that the writers of the upcoming Candlyand were planning an epic film in the same vein as The Lord of The Rings. Glenn Berger and Jonathan Aibel made up for writing the Alvin and the Chimpmunks films with the Kung-Fu Panda movies. The writers gave an update about the project while doing press for Kung-Fu Panda 2.
Berger spoke to AICN, and revealed that if it had not been for the success of Kung Fu Panda that they would not have landed this gig. Candyland's producers recognized that the writers took Panda serious and did a great job of creating an immersive world. Here is what he had to say:
That’s precisely, I think, why we got the job on CANDY LAND. But that’s also why we were excited about getting the job on CANDY LAND. It’s something that, on the face of it, seems like a huge challenge: it’s a board game for kids, and there’s no strategy involved. But what it does have is the opportunity to set an action movie in a world made of candy. So when we meet with the director, Kevin Lima, and he says, “I want this to be LORD OF THE RINGS but with candy,” you could either laugh at that, or say, “If you could pull that off, that would be really cool. We’d love to be a part of that because we love LORD OF THE RINGS and we love candy.”
His comment to The Playlist was very similar, but with the addition of a Shakespeare reference: “…you take something that could be considered childish or silly and you take it really seriously and say, “What if there was an operatic, ‘King Lear’-like civil war in a kingdom that just happened to be made completely out of candy?” And you take the action sequences seriously and you take the comedic elements seriously and there’s a real emotional journey the characters go on. Having just done that, twice over, with a giant plush panda, we thought “Maybe we could try it again with candy.” We were excited about the challenge and hopefully we can pull it off.”)
Aibel supported the comments by saying:
Every movie is about the execution. I don’t think there’s a great movie where if you said the logline to it, someone wouldn’t say, “That sounds terrible!” If someone said, “There’s this archaeologist, and he tries to steal this relic from the Nazis,” you be like, “I don’t know, that sounds kind of lame.” Anything is going to be in how it’s done. And hopefully this will be done well. We’re certainly approaching it in the spirit of sincerity. We want to tell a great story, and it just happens to be based on CANDY LAND. Kevin and everyone at Hasbro aren’t just like, “Let’s just take this board game, and make a movie to sell more board games.” It isn’t that at all.
What are your thoughts? Are you interested in this film?