• Ad Age, Thursday, February 21, 2008 11:45 AM

Hasbro is embarking on a six-year, four-picture deal with Universal Pictures based on its top-selling board game "Monopoly," as well as "Candy Land," "Clue," "Ouija," "Battleship" and "Stretch Armstrong." Under the agreement, Universal will release a board-game-derived movie in 2010 or 2011, with the studio committing to release at least one film a year thereafter.

The deal follows Hasbro's huge summer success with "Transformers" (worldwide gross: $700 million) and setting up "G.I. Joe" at Paramount Pictures. "Scrabble"--which Hasbro controls in North America and which rival Mattel sells internationally--is absent from the lineup included in the deal.

Separately, Ira Bernstein, co-president of Lionsgate's syndicated TV outfit Debmar-Mercury, says he has cleared another Hasbro game title--"Trivial Pursuit"--as a game show across nearly 90% of the nation's TV markets: News Corp.-owned stations in Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and New York will air "Trivial Pursuit: America Plays" starting this September.

Read the whole story at Ad Age »