Red Light, greenlit: 22 childhood games ripe for Hollywood adaptation

In this unofficial sequel to DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story from Austrian director Michael Haneke, Vince Vaughn once again plays the owner of a gym that’s seen much better days. Unfolding in stark, long, black-and-white takes, Bombardment documents the slow death of a once-proud man, his glory days long behind him. Glimmers of hope in the form of old friends—Stephen Root, the ghost of Rip Torn—are quickly crushed by the haunting realization that they’re simply a series of fever dreams, symptoms of a serious illness whose nature is only hinted at in a series of agonizing treatments at a rundown clinic. Tag line: “When life hits all at once, there’s no point fighting back.”

Next summer, terror moves out of the playground and into this great nation’s swimming pools, where it belongs. Mindy is a 10-year-old girl (played by a spare Fanning that Hollywood probably has hanging around out back) who spends a long, lazy summer realizing that the town swimming pool—the one her religious mother forbade her from using after that weird accident with the swim team last year—is the place to be… until she learns its secret. A chemical plant has spilled several gallons of a highly classified mutagen into the pool, and Mindy’s friends have begun transforming at night, under the full moon—their arms becoming fins, their mouths filling with sharp teeth. Yes, they are were-sharks, and the only one who can stop them is Mindy “Minnow” Owen. John Goodman stars as what amounts to Quint from Jaws, with Toni Collette as the mom and Ariana Grande as head lifeguard. Check out the trailer, soundtracked by V V Brown’s “Shark In The Water.” Tag line: “Death rules the water.”

When the nation’s top epidemiologist, Rachel Heaton (Sandra Bullock), is called to a grocery store in rural Georgia, she’s shocked by what she finds: customers and cashiers frozen in a state of panic, unable to move. Our hero tracks down patient zero, Taggart Braer (Aaron Paul), who explains that after a hiking expedition in the deepest reaches of the Amazon years ago, he developed “the touch” and retreated from civilization, only coming into town for necessities. But he made a mistake, innocent people got frozen, and now there’s a manhunt in progress. Heaton thinks she can develop a cure for Braer’s virus—she just needs to determine the “it” factor that keeps Braer from freezing himself before the angry mob catches up to them. Tag line: “He can put anyone on ice.”

In the romantic-dramedy Red Light, Green Light, irritating ad executive Jack McDougal—played by Adam Sandler, teamed here with his Spanglish director James L. Brooks—is suffering a Gypsy curse placed on all the men in his family three generations ago: Whenever something great happens in his life, it’s always followed by something equally horrible. He gets a big promotion, then his grandmother dies. He finally gets engaged, but his fiancée leaves him at the altar. Still, he relentlessly pursues wealth, power, and women. Will happy-go-lucky crossing guard Cameron Diaz be able to teach him about the art of balance—of when to stop and when to go—and help him lift the curse? Tag line: “All things in moderation… except love.”

Three prisoners—Chow Yun-Fat, John Cho, and George Clooney—are abandoned by their captors in the vast Gobi desert. But there’s one catch—they’re blind, victims of a terrible acid attack. The empty desert around them is meant to be their tomb. Through sheer determination, the men learn to depend on each other for survival—leaning on their voices for support as they unknowingly, but instinctively follow an ancient road to China—with water running out. Tag line: ”Lose each other, and you’ve lost yourself.”

A sadistic, yet playful domestic terrorist (an especially unhinged ) crafts a terrifying new kind of explosive: the VolleyBomb, a nuclear weapon encased in hard rubber that will detonate only if it’s allowed to bounce twice in the same location. When he deploys it at the border of the Four Corners, threatening equally the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, it becomes a race against sluggish human reflexes to keep the VolleyBomb moving between all four states, without ever touching down that second, deadly time. Meanwhile, it’s up to a brash federal agent (Channing Tatum) and a crusty Farmington sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) to set aside their initial friction and do whatever they can to ensure they don’t all end up… out of bounds. Tag line: “It’s nonstop action—squared.”

When it comes to love, Busy Pratfell (Katherine Heigl) feels like she’s been going in circles, dating men one after the other without ever finding happiness. Dragged by her friends to see an unconventional motivational speaker (an even-louder-than-usual ), she quickly becomes a convert to an unusual game plan: Just be as obnoxious as possible, and eventually you’ll wear down Mr. Right. Busy’s new strategy of goofy faces, clumsy physical comedy, and talking in an annoying baby voice is soon put to the test against an attractive yet stoic co-worker (a visibly filled-with-regret Timothy Olyphant), who proves resistant to her desperate attempts to get him to break—but how long will he last? Tag line: “Sometimes love just refuses to leave.”

A cross between and Tetherball stars some of today’s hottest young stars in a post-apocalyptic playground battle to the death. Elle Fanning stars as Jess, a small but mentally strong 15-year-old chosen to represent her town in the nation’s televised tetherball tournament. While she’s played a few times, she’ll have to quickly develop both skill and arm strength if she hopes to best other competitors, like ruthless and popular Tamara (Ashley Benson). And what happens when, during training, Jess falls for one of her male counterparts, played by Logan Lerman? Will either of them have the strength, stamina, or ball-handling skills it takes to make it through the horrible gauntlet? Or will they end up victims of their inexperience, twisted in the ropes of fate and left to hang? Tag line: “Life itself is on the line.”

In the grand tradition of Duck Duck Goose steeps itself in the atmosphere of paranoia surrounding the British secret service. Working within and without this environment is Idris Elba, an MI5 agent tasked by agency boss Helen Mirren with rooting out a mole. Suspicions run rampant, particularly after a manipulative colleague (Jared Harris) suggests to Elba that he could name anyone in a large circle of higher-ups (played by, in order of appearance, Emma Thompson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Hugh Bonneville, Nick Frost, Olivia Colman, Archie Panjabi, Hugh Grant, Christopher Plummer, the starting lineup of the Arsenal F.C., a hologram of Laurence Olivier, the actual Dumbledore from Harry Potter, and the royal baby) as the quarry of this “wild chase”—and then take their place in the chain of command. Tag line: “Either you duck, or you become the goose.”15. SardinesIn this close-quarters romance, Jenny and Jim (Katie Aselton and Mark Duplass) are lovers on the rocks who seek to hash things out by hiding beneath a living-room table for the afternoon. As the day wears on, they find that they can hide from their friends (Greta Gerwig, Alex Karpovsky, Lynn Shelton) but not from their problems, which end up easier to resolve when they’re crammed face-to-face in the same small space. But as word of the amazing problem-solving table spreads, Jenny and Jim find themselves crowded out of the only thing that’s keeping them together. Tag line: “Meet Jenny and Jim. They’re about to get closer.”

A comedy of errors, Robert Luketic’s Musical Chairs is non-stop zany. Charlotte (Rachel McAdams), a would-be singer who can’t carry a tune, mistakes Peter (Justin Timberlake) for a famous pop songwriter and invites him to a lavish dinner at her estate in hopes of snagging a record deal. Little does she know that her fiery younger sister Katie (Emma Stone) has invited the actual pop composer (also played by Timberlake, but with a mustache) as her date, completely neglecting to RSVP “plus one.” Meanwhile, Katie’s friend Nikki, a wannabe pop sensation willing to do anything to succeed, decides to crash the soirée with her agent in tow. With only so many place cards and the mingling music dwindling, who will get a seat in the big time? Tag line: “Who’ll be left standing when the music stops?”

Small-town Kentucky boy Tommy (Tom Hardy) is sent off to the trenches of World War I, leaving behind his high school sweetheart (Michelle Williams). Tommy hopes to fight his longing heart by writing her a letter every day—but his tough, battle-tested hands have rendered his handwriting indecipherable. Determined to improve his script and reconnect with his lady, Tommy befriends his outfit’s soft-spoken radioman, Anthony (Giovanni Ribisi), who helps teach his bullish counterpart the art of cursive. Their lessons are constantly interrupted by cannon fire, and they’re eventually stuck behind enemy lines. But the friends use their position to attack the enemy from the rear, changing the course of the war. Tag line: “I think it spells… love?”

Doing for David Fincher-styled psychological thrillers what did for the slasher genre, Heads Up, Seven Up follows the game of lies, intrigue, and deadly obsession that ensnares a group of students at Nicholas Van Orton High School. The rules are fluid, the conclusion is ambiguous—and for all any of the “players” knows, their teachers started the whole thing just to get a little peace and quiet. Standout sequence: A tense tracking shot through Principal Durden’s office, where silent students place their heads against desks in a tableau representing the sins of sloth, vainglory, and pride. Tag line: “Keep your head down—or it might end up in a box.”