Do Not Collect $200 Million.

A bold, uncompromising vision of the not-too-distant future, a stark expose of the greed and corruption that ignited the credit collapse…or a weird cash-in by a director looking to pay some bills? Word is Ridley Scott will direct Monopoly for Warner Brothers, based on the ever-popular, family-destroying board game, “with an eye toward giving it a futuristic sheen along the lines of his iconic ‘Blade Runner.” (It’s unclear as of yet what this does to Joe Haldeman’s Forever War.) Um…ok.

By the way, for a solid laugh or three, check out the AICN feed about the news, where wry movie people are having good fun eviscerating the project, and imagining its competitors. I particularly liked “M. Night Shyamalan’s BALDERDASH — You’ll never guess what happens!” and “David Cronenerg’s DON’T BREAK THE ICE, with Christopher Walken. In 2011, the ice…is gonna break!” (Although, as someone else noted, “Mr. Potato Head” is definitely a better Cronenberg fit.)

Inconvenient Truths | Convenient Gaming

And, while I’m snarfing links from other blogs, two choice entries from PlasticBag: (1) A rather lame “amateur” anti-Gore YouTube video turns out to be the work of GOP agit-prop artists, likely at the behest of Exxon; and (2) to keep up with the times, everyone’s favorite real estate robber baron simulation, Monopoly, is forsaking the multicolored cash for debit cards. “It is inserted into an electronic machine where the banker taps in cardholders’ earnings and payments.