The Silence of the Lambs (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

Wow, I just saw this article written by Joelcool7 at gamrConnect.  Basically, the article states Hollywood is going after board game licenses for movies.  One of the games he mentions is Magic the Gathering.  I didn’t like that fact that Joel lumped MtG into the board game genre, but he didn’t really speak about MtG either.  He just mentioned that there is a possible movie out there.

Joel’s article talks about how board games lack plot.  Well, That is actually a good thing.  A good story isn’t about plot alone.  In fact, a good story is really told by the characters.  If a writer doesn’t develop the characters the plot will fail.  Stories are far more about a balance between plot and character with character carrying the weight.

Lets look at a couple of movies and see if I can get my point across.  The Expendables was an intense action packed movie with a lot of characters. Who were played by some really big names (Jet  Li, Sylvester Stallone, Mickey O Rourke, Dolph Lundgren, and Jason Statham).  I liked it.  It would have been a lot better if it was 45 minutes longer and all the characters had a chance to develop.  Better yet, start with 3 characters and introduce the rest in a sequel.  In the Expendables the plot was there but there was just not enough time to develop the characters.

The Silence of the Lambs is probably the best plot verse character success I can think of.  The characters DR. Lecter and Clarice played by Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster have plenty of time to develop.   As a watcher you really get to know them and you want to feel what at least one of them feels.   Understanding a characters feeling in a story gives the viewer a more enjoyable experience.

In the world of Magic the Gathering the characters already have so much detail it’s a no brainer to turn this IP into a movie.   The only question is with so much story development already done, where would you start the movie?  I would love to see the Brothers War saga turned into a movie or three.   It would be far more realistic for WotC and oh we will say Paramount (first to pop in my mind) to start with some of the more recent planeswalkers.  The Shards block storyline would make a good storyline.  Who would play Nicol Bolas?

I am pretty excited about this.  And it is not all speculation as this article from MTV’s Movie Blog seems to indicate.

It looks like we are in for some really cool promos at the theaters in the future.