Not too long ago, numerous movies based on popular Hasbro games and toys were set up at Universal, who has since dropped out of most of them. One of them was for a movie based on the popular board game Candy Land, which now has a new home and a large star attached to help make it happen.

It’s being reported that Adam Sandler is in final talks with Sony to not only star in their live-action version of Candy Land, but also write the script with Robert Smigel and produce through his Happy Madision Productions.

This has been floating around the Net for a while now, but not long after the first trailer for the latest Adam Sandler “comedy” Jack & Jill was released some one created a video that cleverly intercut clips from the trailer with a scene from the 1979 Paul Schrader film Hardcore. You can watch it here below.

Long live rock, be it dead or alive…

While on a flight recently, I caught an airing of VH1 Rock Honors – The Who, a 2008 tribute concert to the British classic rock band that featured performances by Incubus, Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Flaming Lips, Adam Sandler, and Tenacious D. The surviving members of The Who — singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist Pete Townshend — also performed their hits “Baba O’Riley,” “Who Are You,” “Behind Blue Eyes,” and “My Generation.”

The entire concert is actually online at VH1, and you can watch it all here below.

Back in May it was reported that Adam Sandler and his Happy Madison Productions had acquired the rights to make a feature-length film based on Pixels, the wildfire viral video from director Patrick Jean that took the world by storm earlier this year (Read: Atari Apocalypse: ‘Donkey Kong’ & Other Classic Arcade Games Invade New York In ‘Pixels’).

Sandler’s company isn’t waiting around to get things moving, having now hired longtime friend and writer Tim Herlihy to pen the script for the movie. Herlihy started writing for Saturday Night Live while Sandler was still a cast member, and the two went on to work with each other many more times. Titles that Herlihy helped write for Sandler include Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, The Waterboy, Big Daddy, Little Nicky, and Mr. Deeds.

The short video for which the movie will be based showed a world where classic arcade game characters and elements come to life and wreak havoc on the city. In Happy Madison’s feature, it’s said that they want to take a Ghostbusters action/comedy approach to their take.

If you haven’t seen Pixels yet, you can click over to the other side now to get an idea of what to expect from Happy Madision’s adaptation.

Grown Ups
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Starring Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade, Rob Schneider
Rated PG-13
Release date: June 25, 2010

If you only see one movie this summer, it would be a smart idea to make it anything other than Grown Ups, the latest film to star Adam Sandler and the usual group of people who seem to rely entirely on Sandler for work.

What rough passes for the plot of the movie is this: A group of friends were all on their grade school basketball team together and won a championship game. Thirty years later, their former coach passes away, and the friends decide to spend a weekend at a cottage on the lake after his funeral. They bring their families, straight from the funeral, and hilarity ensues… right? Not really.

Every single character is a one-trick pony that runs the same joke into the ground repeatedly. Eric (Kevin James) is a family man who tries hard to be a big shot but cannot have a honest conversation about most things. Kurt (Chris Rock) is an emasculated househusband who likes to cook, but only so much that it’s mentioned once early in the film. Marcus (David Spade) is a sex-hungry womanizer. Rob (Rob Schneider) is a new-age dimwit who likes much older women. Then there’s Lenny (Adam Sandler) who’s rich, successful, and great at sports all while being surprisingly humble and down-to-Earth about it all.