Paul Feig May Help Shape Play-Doh Into a Movie

Thanks to the success of The LEGO Movie, studios are rushing to turn all sorts of toys and games into new film franchises, taking a cue from Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s highly inventive approach with a toy series that allows for endless possibilities. Like LEGO, Play-Doh also offers limitless creative wonders…kind of. And Fox sees the potential (profits) in taking the toy clay from your child’s messy hands to the big screen.

Per Deadline, Fox is in the process of cutting a deal with Hasbro to develop a Play-Doh movie, to possibly be written and directed by Paul Feig. Following The LEGO Movie model, Fox is taking a seemingly ill-advised toy-based movie idea and attaching a very smart, very funny, and very beloved director to it. Result: Profit.

The LEGO Movie was a huge critical and commercial success, and has already spawned plans for an entire franchise, including spinoffs and sequels. It’s not clear exactly what sort of story you can tell with Play-Doh — you can mold it into various, vaguely recognizable shapes of animals, plants and food, so there’s that. Villains include the threat of being zealously mushed together in one giant, multi-colored clump, or being embedded in suburban carpet. In a plot twist, it’s revealed that Play-Doh was really the enemy all along.

At any rate, the Play-Doh movie joins several other toy-based projects currently in the works, including Monopoly, Playmobil, and the Ouija movie sequel.