Of all the stupid ideas in all the world, why do they have to raid my precious memories of childhood board games? Who is holding their breath waiting to see Ridley Scott's Monopoly, or Michael Bay's Ouija Board? How about the latest marketing move, an adaptation of Battleship? Writers have been signed, and Peter Berg is in talks to direct a film version of the game, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The idea, apparently, is "to make an epic naval action adventure." Of course, with tens of millions of dollars at stake in development, production, and marketing costs, no one wants to just make an original naval action adventure. They want a movie with a built-in tag line -- "You sunk my battleship!" -- and consumer familiarity so that everyone will know what the movie is about. The last epic naval adventure was Peter Weir's Master and Commander, but I guess it's cheaper to license board games than novels.

Peter Berg has proven with Hancock and The Kingdom that he can handle action scenes, but he's also got (possibly) Hercules: The Thracian Wars and Dune on his plate of potential projects, so who knows when he could fit this one in. First they have to get a workable script. Here's my idea: robots! Yeah, robots can pilot the ships, and humans can control the ships from thousands of miles away, and the plot involves the conquest of ocean territories to secure the bad guy's conquest of the free world. (Obviously, this is why I'm not a highly-paid screenwriter.) What are your ideas for making an epic out of a board game?

Yesterday I shared the news that Roland "Irwin Allen Part 2" Emmerich had been tapped to direct an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation. Near the end of the article I opined that either Ridley Scott or Peter Berg would have been my choice to direct this film. Now, obviously the man who directed A L I E N and Blade Runner would be a great choice for an Asimov adaptation, but Peter Berg? Did I actually THINK about that choice? Readers didn't seem to think so:

"Peter Berg? Are you smoking crack?" / "Berg has done NOTHING good, so I can't see the reasoning/logic behind that choice AT ALL." / "How do you go from Sir Scott to Peter Berg?" / "Peter Berg? F off."

So yeah. Obviously I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, but here's the thing: In my opinion, Peter Berg has yet to make a sub-par film. Yep, seriously. Very Bad Things? Love the audacity. The Rundown? A perfect weekend time-waster. Friday Night Lights? One of the most unexpectedly fine football flicks I've ever seen. The Kingdom? Plain old excellent. Hancock? Well, I simply loved it.

So yeah: I'll stick to that request. Sure, Berg has yet to do a sci-fi flick, but I bet he'd do a fine job of it. Feel free to abuse me further. I can take it.

Superhero movies are like Lay's potato chips (it is Lay's, isn't it?) -- you can never have just one. JoBlo caught up with Will Smith during his press rounds for Seven Pounds, and asked him if we would ever see any more of his reformed superhero, Hancock. The answer? "Definitely."

In fact, Smith is uninterested in ever playing another superhero because there's enough franchise potential in this one. He told JoBlo that there's plenty of unexplored characters in Hancock's universe that would be ripe for a sequel -- and that we'll find out who they are in an eventual sequel. It's not expected for a few years, which is puzzling. It did well at the box office, but it wasn't particularly memorable. In two or three years, will anyone actually remember Hancock enough to flock to a sequel? Won't their brains be overloaded with all those Marvel and DC movies? Shouldn't Peter Berg and Smith while the iron is relatively hot?

Then again, we are talking Smith. He's the King of Summer. The iron is always hot. Audiences will probably flock to see him whether or not they remember the original film or not. Let's turn it over to you guys -- are you up for a Hancock sequel? Do you see the unexplored characters and potential that could keep Hancock competing with Marvel and DC for years to come? Or was he just a summer one-shot?

Back in 2006, Erik posted about the tragic death of Nick Papac -- a 25-year-old assistant propmaster who was then working on The Kingdom. While he was driving a motorized cart on a closed stretch of highway in Arizona which was used for shooting, it accidentally collided with an SUV that happened to be carrying director Peter Berg. Papac was thrown from the cart, and pronounced dead later at the local hospital.

Now the AP/Yahoo reports that Papac's parents are suing Berg, a driver, and the production company asking for an unspecified amount that includes funeral costs, lost earnings, and medical expenses. (Papac's father, Michael, is a longtime propmaster who has worked on films like Die Hard and Iron Man.)

It seems like a fairly reasonable request, and I have to say that I'm surprised it has gotten to this stage. Perhaps things will become clear as the lawsuit continues. Papac's lawyer stated that the lawsuit is still in the early stages, so specifics could not be given.

When you've made a very modern tale of a troubled man struggling to live with his super powers, what's left but to tackle a mythical yet tormented Greek hero? Peter Berg, who directed Will Smith to box office success in Hancock, will reboot one ot the original superheroes, Hercules, according to Variety.

Hercules: The Thracian Wars, a five-issue comic book series by Steve Moore issued in May by Radical Publishing, will provide the source material. Ryan Condal, recently tapped to adapt Warren Ellis' comic mini-series/graphic novel Ocean, will write the script; Berg will direct and co-produce.

The plot synopsis for the series describes Hercules as a "tormented soul ... neither god nor man." When the King of Thrace hires him "to train his men to become the greatest army of all time," Herc and his buddies are prompted to consider whey they have such a ruthless, bloodthirsty reputation. Berg intends to stay true to the "conflicts and redemption" in Moore's character-driven comic book series.

When another project about Hercules was announced last year, Christopher Campbell questioned if there had ever been a decent Hercules movie. (He ran down most of them.) So, three questions: (1) Is the comic book any good? (2) Is Berg the right director to reboot Herc? (3) Who could play the muscular Greek hero without making people laugh at him?

Okay, so we went through something similar with Frank Darabont's unused draft of the latest Indiana Jones installment, which managed to be a bit better (read: Mutt-less) compared to the still entertaining end result. Now, it appears that the original draft for Hancock -- long titled Tonight, He Comes -- has popped up by way of Jeff Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere (read it here). Oh, and if it's authentic, it happens to be missing the next-to-last page.

I've found the behind-the-scenes hearsay -- conveniently summed up in this NY Times piece -- on this film to be fairly fascinating. First, as scripted by Vy Vincent Ngo, Tonight had made the rounds as a reportedly hard-R superhero drama that capitalized on the somewhat sexual nature of the title. However, it seems once Will Smith was brought on board, Sony saw fit to tame things down considerably.

Even as recently as April, the MPAA had twice handed them an R instead of the sought-after PG-13, and now the finished result runs a choppy 92 minutes -- distinctly shorter than indicated in AICN test screening reports which made particular mention of a subplot involving statutory rape. Of course, as Wells brings up, it's hard to ignore the involvement of producer/screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, whose recent work on Smith's last hit, I Am Legend, had a similarly slapdash second half at the compromise of the original material.

I've yet to get more than a couple of pages into this thing, but do you guys think this is the real deal, and if so, do you guys think that this is the real film compared to what's on thousands of screens this week?

Well here's something you don't see every day: A big, flashy summertime "tentpole" movie that A) takes chances, B) bucks convention, and C) takes some real risks with its subject material. Obviously the safe approach is for Will Smith to do (yet another) easily-digestible (if somewhat mindless) blockbuster like I, Robot or I Am Legend or Independence Day -- but this time the endlessly profitable Will Smith is working with a rather distinctive director who refuses to cater to formula. That director would be Peter Berg, and this guy has yet to make a bad film.

Unfortunately the production history on Hancock is not a fantastic one. There was a revolving door of directors and script polishers before Columbia finally started production -- but there were still marketing issues, last-minute reshoots, and MPAA miseries to deal with. And yet, despite all that, Hancock arrives like a breath of weirdly fresh air for moviegoers who like a little heart and soul mixed in with their hyper-kinetic action mayhem. Toss some sharp wit and an impressive display of edge into the mix, and I think you may have one of my favorite movies of the summer. (Although one can plainly tell that there was some late cutting done to the flick, all in the name of the almighty PG-13 rating, of course.)

I wanted to go into Hancock knowing as little as possible, so I deliberately avoided reading anything about it -- at least, as much as that was possible given the amount of movie blog reading I do on a daily basis. Nonetheless, it was hard to miss that early reviews trickling in from places like Variety and Hollywood Reporter were not, shall we say, overly positive. On the other hand, several of those reviews were written by people who often seem to have cinematic tastes directly opposite mine, so I wasn't too dissuaded.

And I'm glad I wasn't, because I'm here to tell you Hancock is both an enjoyable film and one of Will Smith's best performances ever, even if it is a bit schizophrenic in its execution. The film starts out as one thing -- all we know is we're getting a film about a grumpy, alcoholic guy with super powers who's awfully deficient in the social skills department. The film opens on a scene right out of COPS: three bad guys leading police on a chase down an LA freeway, firing away on police and other cars. In between shots of the action, we see a disheveled guy snoozing drunkenly on a park bench.

Although Will Smith plays an emotionally fragile superhero in Hancock, as a movie star he's practically invincible. By industry standards, the last genuine Smith dud was The Legend of Bagger Vance, but the actor's standing among many audiences has remained decidedly rocky. As a result, he occupies a unique corner of the Hollywood marketplace where quality and taste don't necessarily match up. Unlike, say, The Dark Knight, not many people eagerly await the latest Smith offering -- which currently has a 32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes -- but they'll see it anyway. Hancock is tracking well, thanks to a poster exclusively dominated by Smith's unshaven mug, and that pretty much seals its potent box office fate. Just as Smith's slapdash onscreen persona is bullet-proof, Smith himself is steadfastly critic-proof.

Which places movie in an interesting quagmire: After pulling in waves of cash, it will probably get relegated to the void of forgettable Smith fare, where spectacles offer passing amusement before scampering off forever. Hancock, however, deserves better than a fleeting moment in the limelight and a crash landing in the bargain bin. It's part of a genre that speaks directly to the modern state of blockbuster cinema: The superhero satire.

Oh, this is going to be huge. There's a new 3-minute trailer for Will Smith's Hancock available here and ... well, go see for yourself. I recommend the Quicktime version.

I know the all-too-common criticism that "all the good parts are in the trailer" makes this less meaningful, but: Every frame of that thing is gold. The first minute or so, with Will Smith as a sarcastic, rude, drunken superhero, is simply brilliant; I've watched the five-second exchange between Hancock and the indignant bystander ("I can smell that liquor on your breath!" "'Cause I been drinkin'!") a half-dozen times now and giggled every time. Smith deserves an Oscar just for his delivery of that line, and we don't even get to hear the whole thing (I'm guessing the next word is "b*tch"). The second half of the trailer, giving us a glimpse of Hancock's attempted PR comeback with the help of an opportunistic publicist (Jason Bateman) isn't as incredible, but I love the focus on what it's like to be a superhero not in a universe where you can do whatever you want, but in the American bureaucratic state. Hancock's canned press conference apology is priceless.

The special effects look seamless, and I'm particularly curious to see a full-on summer blockbuster done in director Peter Berg's signature volatile shaky-cam style. From what I can tell, it's a bit toned down but still unmistakably present; look at the SUV scene in the opening seconds, and the introduction of Jason Bateman about a minute in.

This looks like a summer movie made by a bunch of very smart, very talented people. And that's something to look forward to.