Live-Action Monster High Movie Coming From Universal in 2016

[MovieBob]

Live-Action Monster High Movie Coming From Universal in 2016

Monster Squad meets Mean Girls in newly-announced feature based on popular toy line.

Universal Pictures has announced that it will release the first live-action feature film based on the Monster High [http://www.monsterhigh.com/] fashion doll franchise just in time for Halloween in October 2016. The toy line, primarily depicting a group of teenaged friends who are based on classic movie-monsters, may not have the broader pop-culture visibility of Hasbro's My Little Pony line but has built a devoted following among its target audience of young girls since debuting in 2010 (though its movie-monster connection has also drawn attention from the collector and cosplay circuit).

What makes the deal interesting, from a Hollywood perspective, is that while they were previously not officially affiliated, the central Monster High characters draw obvious (and intentional) inspiration from the studio's "Universal Monsters" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Monsters] (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf-Man, The Mummy, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, etc) regarded by many as the first major multi-series pop-culture "franchise" to originate in narrative film. While most of the films and their monster "stars" were adaptations of non-copyright sources (hence why Monster High could homage/appropriate them in the first place), their Universal-specific designs are owned by the studios. Hypothetically, this deal would allow characters to more directly reference their Universal Monster counterparts in the actual film.

Created for Mattel by Garrett Sander, Kellee Riley and illustrator Glen Hanson (and said to be worth about $1.4 billion to the toy giant) Monster High has previously been adapted into video-games, webisodes, Nickelodeon TV specials, Young Adult and one animated feature, all of which use parodies of monster/horror tropes for humor and to teach age-appropriate life lessons. Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, the creators of Gossip Girl, will write and produce the film.


Source: Deadline [http://www.deadline.com/2014/05/universal-monster-high-2016-release-date-r-rated-comedy/]

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[Aerosteam]

Not sure why a news post was made about this but okay. XD

Why have I seen nothing about Monster High before? Are the toys even available outside North America? Is there a television show based on it? Was Equestria Girls really created to compete with it? Not sure why I'm asking, I'm not even interested in this sort of stuff. =_=

Edit: "Comics & Cosplay"? XD

 

[Scarim Coral]

Not sure why a news post was made about this but okay. XD

Why have I seen nothing about Monster High before? Are the toys even available outside North America? Is there a television show based on it? Was Equestria Girls really created to compete with it? Not sure why I'm asking, I'm not even interested in this sort of stuff. =_=

Edit: "Comics & Cosplay"? XD

To answer your questions-

1. They started off as a online webepisodes hence not everyone knew about them until they became popular.
2. Yes (check your toy store).
3. I think so? I know they got some dvd movies but I have no idea if they ever once aired on TV.
4. Yes (I think)?

OT- I can see it happening given to some recent cartoon getting some sort of a lived action feature (like Ben 10) althought I dread to think how Hasbro are going to compete that.

 

[Naqel]

Let me put it this way: It will be a lot less creepy than anything else that already exists within the franchise.

 

[Mr. Q]

I know the series quite a bit, mostly due to my niece being into it and I get her the dolls for birthdays and Christmas. If this is a movie she wants to see, I just hope its good.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

If it's going to be anything like the abysmal Bratz movie (yes, such a thing exists), then they may as well stop while they're ahead.

3. I think so? I know they got some dvd movies but I have no idea if they ever once aired on TV.

The DVD's are basically Nickelodeon specials that come out on DVD first, then they're aired on TV around a month afterward. The same thing is done with Barbie movies that air on the channel. I could be totally wrong.

 

[Tartarga]

So these toys are just monster themed Bratz right? That's the vib i'm getting from them.

 

[Leonbelmont64]

Seeing I'm a huge fan of horror I've collected these for a while heck I own the bishoujo dolls of Freddy vs Jason(look them up they look pretty cool) I wouldn't say Bratz as Bratz tried to copy them with their own line of monster/witch dolls that weren't nearly as good. Also all the original characters were sons/daughters of famous horror monsters like Holtz Hyde(son of Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde) Clawde Wolf, Frankie Stien etc though the male characters are much harder to find then the female ones and actually more popular where I come from in Canada as they tend to sell out much faster and they only usually have 1 in a box. Which is surprising, also like my little pony it has male and female collectors of the series as I've talked to a few guys that buy them.

 

[Therumancer]

For those who are curious:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_High

It's been a multi-media franchise for a while, having had some young adult novels, animated movies, and other things. It existed on the fringes for a while and seemed to come close to dying because I first became aware of it through seeing a bunch of "Monster High" stuff in discount stores. I almost bought a set of the dolls for my Stepmother at one point, but she asked me not to since she didn't have a place to put them. That said it seemed to "resurrect" itself shortly thereafter and I've since seen it all over the place, and charging premium prices.

I can see why they might want to do a mainstream movie, but honestly I think it would be a bad idea. In part it's survived because it's a quasi-cult thing. Too much success might get them into a battle with other similar properties/IPs like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravedale_High which while long dead is probably being sat on, just waiting for something like this to pop out into the mainstream enough to make a juicy lawsuit possible. Not to mention that "Monster High" also has received a number of critics, both in terms of liberal body image crusaders (despite how stylized it is), and the IP's focus on supposed "real issues facing teen girls" which include things like having a Vampire character who is supposed to be Vegan, when Veganism, especially for teens is a big issue due to health
concerns and so on. Not to mention that it goes into "young adult" territory with it's novels and such, similar to "Twilight" which is probably why some people think this could work, but also means it's going to bring a lot of the weird baggage with it. At least TWO of the Monster High girls are supposed to be well over 1,000 years old. According to the wiki the vampire is 1600 years old, and the Mummy is almost 6000 years old. If you thought Edward hanging out in high schools was bizzare, and there were weird pedophile issues with him stalking underage girls, that's got nothing on some of these concepts if they try and treat them even remotely seriously in a movie. It doesn't matter who they wind up dating, and whether it's a monster or not, we're taking "cougar" to a whole new level here.

The point here is that this is kind of cool as long as it's on the fringes and you don't put it out there too much, but once you bring it to the forefront, have it put under a microscope, and everything else it's less likely to break into a more mainstream fan base, than explode in a fiery train wreck, and probably inspire mockery that is going to make "Twilight" look tame without ever lasting quite as long.

Then there are again the legal issues, truthfully I don't know who has the "Gravedale High" rights, for all I know Universal (which seems to be behind this) already got control of them. However as long as that's out there, I wouldn't want to touch this with a 10' pole as a producer. A lot of people would say I'm being paranoid and they "aren't similar enough" but let's just say I wouldn't want to be the one taking that particular risk simply because Monster High put a "girl power" spin on the same basic idea. Especially seeing as if I was on the other side, and acting as a trademark troll, I'd wait until they had a movie out there before I acted, to ensure they had liquid assets I could get right then and there (the box office take), as opposed to going after the current, substantial, value which is probably less liquid and more tied up in the label and it's assets so would be a pain for me to actually profit off my trolling in any short term sense if I actually won. This kind of thing is all about timing, a copyright lawyer doesn't generally want to sue someone and hope they get close to the value of their winnings/damages when someone's assets are forced to auction. I'm the right age where I actually thought of "Gravedale" (even if this was a few years past my serious cartoon age) as soon as I saw this IP.