Candy Land movie to be Lord of the Rings-esque

Candy Land seems like a board game particular to American childhood; as a kid I was a demon at Trouble, Guess Who and The Game of Life, but Candy Land was never in my toy box. Apparently you draw coloured cards and move your gingerbread man to the square that corresponds with the colour you pick up, venturing through the ‘peppermint forest’ and ‘ice cream sea’ to get to your destination: Candy Castle.

It doesn’t require any reading or counting so preschoolers can play (the whole game sounds fairly simple). Now it seems the ‘fairly simple’ Milton Bradley game is being turned into a film.

According to Entertainment Weekly, co-writers of Kung Fu Panda 2, Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Barger, are writing the film version. “We envision it as Lord of The Rings, but set in a world of candy”, says Aibel, with Berger adding: ““We are going for real comedy, real action, and real emotions at stake.”

Whilst Candy Land’s potential characters – ‘Lord Liquorice’ and ‘King Kandy’ – don’t exactly sound like they’ll be able to hold a flame to LOTR’s iconic Gandalf The White and Dark Lord Sauron, the two writers have made a big deal about the similarities between the two projects. They even suggest there will be an epic battle: to lift the dark evil shadow that has for years been cast across Candy Land “from the sugary slopes of Gum Drop Mountain to the sticky thickets of the Candy Cane Forest”.

Obviously these dark themes have completely surpassed the preschoolers who played the original board game; lucky Barger and Aibel picked up on all this latent fantasy film potential!

Discuss: Are the writers of Candy Land getting a bit ahead of themselves with all this LOTR talk?