Hasbro has essentially led the table on big-screen toy modifications for the past 15 years, but its competitors at Mattel have been quietly making some plans lately. There is the new Barbie movie that has been years in the making, with Margot Robbie now attached to star and Greta Gerwig (!) And Noah Baumbach (!) Were going to write the screenplay (we’re still not convinced that’s all true), and in February we heard about Lil Yachty starring in an “action heist comedy” based on A (which doesn’t make much sense either, but we’re willing to roll with it). Now, Mattel seems to have landed on a much simpler movie pitch, with Variety report Vin Diesel is going to star in a live action movie for Mattel and Universal based on Rock ‘Em Sock’ Em Robots– the classic game about hitting a small button until you hit your opponent’s head off or interrupt the game and then start crying.
The film is about a father and son who “form an unlikely connection to an advanced war machine,” and before attempting to argue that this is all very similar to the plot of the 2011 Hugh Jackman movie Real steel, we have a counterpoint: nobody remembers Real steel, so no one will notice if it cares if this is the exact same movie. (It was explicitly about boxing and this one looks more like one Harry and the Hendersonstype of story about an unusual family friend, but they’re both about robots hitting.) Also, to cut you off before making other jokes, Diesel will play the dad and not the robot. He once played a robot and was very good at it, and his name sounds like it would be the name of a robot, but he plays a human male with a son.
If you want to make fun of it, let’s talk about Diesel’s statement on this announcement, detailing how excited he is to combine a classic game with “the kind of world-building, franchise success we’ve had with Universal. . ” This is a guy who lives for sequels and spin-offs, and it’s gotta destroy him Bloodshot was a flop. But we can all forget that, because here comes an exciting new movie franchise called Rock ‘Em Sock’ Em Robots