Mattel has set its sights on the next toy property that will come to life on the big screen. The success of Barbie continues to make the company’s catalog attractive for film studios, more than a year after the release of the blockbuster. TriStar Pictures is currently developing a movie based on Whac-A-Mole, the game based on players smacking plastic moles in the head with a bat. A legacy that was created more than fifty years ago will make its way to the big screen in the near future. Mattel is excited to strike yet another deal with a major film studio, an endeavor the company has taken very seriously over the past couple of years.

Mattel and Warner Bros. managed to score Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling to lead the successful Barbie adaptation that took over the global box office. No talent has been attached to Whac-A-Mole. It might take a while before both the studio and TriStar Pictures choose a director to tackle the endeavor of turning the popular toy into a successful major film. It won’t be hard for the companies to find talented artists who might want to create something new out of Whac-A-Mole. Greta Gerwig was eager to direct Barbie after working on Little Women.

It’s easy to grasp the concept of Whac-A-Mole as an entertaining toy, but the game has evolved through multiple decades of improvements. Whac-A-Mole was created in Japan in 1975. Five to eight plastic creatures are placed in most iterations of the game, with the player testing their reflexes by hitting the one that approaches the surface. To put it into perspective, people have been playing Whac-A-Mole since before the first Star Wars movie even hit theaters. If TriStar Pictures happens to find the right narrative to tell around the game, the studio could have a massive success on their hands thanks to Mattel.

The Next Steps for Mattel

There’s no stopping Mattel Films right now. If it was easy for the company to sell the rights to their intellectual property before, Barbie opened the floodgates for the deals between Mattel and entertainment studios. Amazon MGM Studios is working on a Masters of the Universe adaptation that will premiere in theaters next year. John Cena signed on to star in a Matchbox adaptation that is in early development. There’s no denying that getting the rights to work on Whac-A-Mole was a no-brainer for the team at TriStar Pictures.

No release date for Whac-A-Mole has been set by TriStar.

via Collider