Board games that would make great movies

By Frank Paiva
Special to MSN Movies

When you're creative, you find inspiration everywhere: Moss creeping out from cracks in the sidewalk. Sparrows singing their morning tune. Women standing naked on clams. The wonders of nature and the human form have moved artists for centuries.

But millions of people don't buy tickets to movies about naked ladies on clams. They'd have to make a comic book about naked ladies on clams first.

Audiences love movies about young wizards and transforming robots and children killing each other in the forest.

Most of all they love the familiar. Seven of the 10 highest-grossing films in 2011 were sequels. The other three were reboots of recognizable properties. But there's only so much well-known source material to draw from. There can't be two movies based on "Snow White" every year. The public will grow weary of all those dwarves.

Books, video games and comic books are all well-mined territories. It was really only a matter of time before Hollywood moved on to board games.

Ah, board games. They live on the top shelf of the closet. They come out once or twice a year on a rainy day after two bottles of wine. They imagine magical worlds of candy and property ownership. If only.

And now, apparently, they make movies. This week "Battleship" hits screens. The summer tentpole is based on the 1943 game of the same name. The film adaptation includes aliens and Rihanna, so it's a bit fancier than the version in your closet. Nevertheless, if the phrase "You sunk my battleship!" doesn't appear at least once, you're within your rights to demand a refund.

To celebrate the release of "Battleship," here are 10 other board games that would make potentially interesting films. Chances are you have a couple of them on the top shelf of your closet.

Bing: View photos of Rihanna

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(Universal Studios)