Play-Doh movie: Jon M. Chu looking to direct from script by Emily V. Gordon

I’d imagine that we’ve all played with Play-Doh at some point in our lives but I doubt many of us have been desperately awaiting a movie based around the modeling compound. We first learned that a Play-Doh movie was in the works back in 2015 with Paul Feig in talks to direct, but next to nothing since then. For a while, it seemed as though the project had just vanished, but Hasbro and eOne have now brought it back to life.

Deadline has reported that Jon M. Chu (In the Heights) is looking to direct an animated Play-Doh movie from a script by Emily V. Gordon (The Big Sick). Chu hasn’t officially signed on to direct the project just yet, but he is onboard to produce the movie alongside Gordon. “The team looks forward to bringing the audience a moldable, pliable, iconically-scented story about the importance of imagination,” Chu and Gordon said in a statement. As much as the very concept of a Play-Doh movie seems bizarre to me, I always remind myself that I once thought the same of The Lego Movie before it came out. Keep an open mind, Kevin.

The Play-Doh movie is only one of many projects in development based on Hashro’s iconic toy and game properties. We’ve got feature-film adaptations of Clue, Mouse Trap, Ouija, and more in the works, not to mention TV series adaptations of Risk and Magic: The Gathering on the horizon as well. The next major Hasbro/eOne project will be the Dungeons & Dragons movie directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley starring Chris Pine, Regé-Jean Page, Hugh Grant, Sophia Lillis, and Michelle Rodriguez. The film is slated to hit theaters on March 3, 2023 and will be followed by a Dungeons & Dragons TV series. Earlier this year, eOne closed a deal with Rawson Marshall Thurber (Red Notice) to “creatively oversee” the series.