5 Feasible Storylines for the Where's Waldo Movie
In an age of Battleship movies and Carmen Sandiego features, it's no surprise that another kid-friendly nostalgia icon, the bespectacled title traveler of Where's Waldo, is purportedly getting his own movie. MGM bought the rights to Waldo, and that could mean a feature adaptation of the smiley boulevardier's exploits is in our near future. I don't know how a man in a striped shirt who gets lost in crowds can sustain an audience's attention for a full movie, but here are five possible storylines I'd tolerate.
1. Waldo must track down his brother Odlaw, a tacky schemer whose black-and-yellow ensemble is aesthetically inferior to Waldo's classic red-and-whites. Odlaw has run off to Europe with Waldo's life savings, and Waldo must find him in unbelievably crowded cityscapes before he spends it all on black-and-yellow real estate.
2. Waldo ditches his soulmate Wilma for a flashy adventurer named Carmen Sandiego. They have a lot in common: They both love globetrotting, being hard to find, and well-fitted red garments. The only problem? She's a notorious con artist and thief, and he's just a sexless cipher in straight-cut blue jeans. Can Waldo, who just wants to blend in at the Louvre, sustain a relationship with a woman who wants to steal the whole Louvre?
3. It's a sad Christmas for Waldo as his family loses sight of him inside the local candy cane factory. Is that him behind some red and white storage bins? Are those his glasses peeking out from under an American flag? In the end, the holiday is saved as Waldo and his family fly to North Pole, discover the real meaning of Christmas, and get lost in a Santa hat factory.
4. Waldo, an underpaid lackey at an accounting firm (of endlessly repetitive cubicles and characters), is greeted in a dreamy haze by Wizard Whitebeard, who promises to show Waldo the world and save him from his humdrum existence. He takes the young troubadour to the Great Wall of China, crowded beaches, and the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. So many people to meet! So much adventure! But Waldo realizes that he's just too feeble for glamorous travel, so he clutches his walking stick and asks to be taken home to his sweatered dog Woof.
5. No plot. Just moviegoers staring at a grim red and white-striped screen, searching for an original idea somewhere in each frame.
MGM finds rights to 'Where's Waldo' [Variety]
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Waldo is a much sought after yet depressed actor. Flying from location shoot to junket to exotic vacation spot, everyone is looking for him, yet no one can see him. His every attempt to be an individual, to be unique, like his eccentric performance art, or his signature wardrobe, somehow only further serves to make him blend in with the surrounding throngs. Until he meets that special girl, with whom he shares a spark, a few moments of real, human connection. But it's not meant to last. A few final words, and she's gone. Cue quirky moody indie singer songwriter song about lost love, fade to black.
The one-sheet should have him standing in bright vivid red and white against a black and white crowd of indifferent strangers, with that forlorn, sad sack look on his face.
Waldo is framed for his wife's murder by "the black-and-yellow striped man". He then escapes from a prison transport bus and becomes a fugitive to go look for the murderer and prove his innocence, all while being hunted by US Marshals. "Where's Waldo?!!"
Ed Helms as Waldo?
I literally don’t even know what to say about this. Battleship, while a horrible idea for a movie, is at least plausible…Navy Thriller, lots of explosions, over-written love story, whatever. And Carmen SanDiego, well, that’s about a bad idea for a movie as Battleship, but at least has the possibility of a plot. But Where’s Waldo? Why not a movie called Frosted Flakes? Adventures of The Michelin Man? Power Point? Come on, Hollywood, could you at least PRETEND to try?
http://hometofirst.tumblr.com/
Holy crap I just realized the plot for #2 is basically The Tourist.
HA! We have to die now.
A storyline for Waldo? How about if he's talked into joining a WorldPeace type mission by a sexy
spy. Their first trip is to Iran, where Waldo runs for his life by rioters and revolutionaries who want
to spice up their usual burning of the American flag by roasting one that can talk.
KRIS
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