John Madden videogame… a movie?!?!

No, really:

What started as a simple joke may now become a motion picture.

Electronic Arts is developing “Madden Curse,” a sports comedy that incorporates the infamous jinx, believed to strike NFL players who appear on the cover of EA’s popular “Madden” video game with injury or poor performance.

The story will follow a former Madden video game champion who is forced out of retirement just as he finds himself on the corner of the game’s cover — and subject to the curse.

Pat O’Brien, VP of EA Entertainment, is spearheading the project as one of its producers.

Look, we all know these are challenging times in Hollywood. Movie releases this year are down 17% from 2007. DVD sales, down. The emergence of EA Sports as a potential player means — hopefully — a paying gig for a screenwriter, and if they end up making a movie, jobs for a lot of above and below-the-line folks, so in one way of looking at it, that’s a good thing.

But unlike actual movies based on the actual video games, this promises to be a movie based on a story about the actual video game. It’s like a whole other layer of weird in this already weird pre-branded brand era in which we’re living.

And so I’m officially starting The Slinky Watch. Because eventually someday you know there’s going to be a movie about… well… this.

http://www.xtranormal.com/site_media/players/jwplayer.swf

http://www.xtranormal.com/site_media/players/embedded-xnl-stats.swf

Based on this:

The Slinky Watch officially begins today! Because when Hollywood decides to make a movie about Slinky, I think we can safely say we will have reached the tipping point on this whole pre-branded band thing.

UPDATE: For more background on pre-branded brands, you can see some earlier GITS posts here, here, here, and here.

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