With holidays now becoming movies like “Valentine’s Day” and “New Year’s Eve,” and with board games now being turned into expensive blockbusters, it looks like the next Hollywood gold rush is going to center around things people watch on TV when they are stuffed with food and/or jet-lagged from traveling to see relatives they don’t really like anyway.
THR reports that producers Scott Glassgold and Raymond Brothers (both behind the direct-to-dvd Forest Whitaker basketball movie “Hurricane Season“) have secured the rights from the department store to turn the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade into a movie. And they’ve got big plans. “We’re aiming to make a four-quadrant, family-friendly film somewhere in that ‘Night At The Museum,’ ‘Elf’ sweet spot,” Glassgold told the trade. You can hear Hollywood counting the money already.
While there are no story details yet, Glassgold and Raymond apparently convinced the store to agree to the project thanks to a presentation drawn up by Joel Venti, who storyboarded “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” and “Thor.” Can you say “event movie”?
“We are always searching for the next ‘Miracle on 34th Street‘,” said Macy’s senior VP Robin Hall. Of course, as you might recall, that holiday classic takes place right within the store. But the store has been largely absent from screens since. When approached to appear in the film “Elf” the stodgy powers that be declined, though they recently relaxed their attitude for the upcoming Ben Stiller comedy “Tower Heist” that will feature some sequences set in the famed store. We’d also guess the branding opportunities are going to be through the roof; product placement is gonna have a whole new meaning.
No word on directors or screenwriters or anything like but we’ll just go ahead and guess this will hit Thanksgiving 2013. Sounds about right.