Movie Mondays: Operation

Lion’s Gate Plays More Mind Games


Yesterday, Lion’s Gate announced that they are reviving an old classic, the board game Operation. But this film is by no means child friendly.

Operation is set to shoot in June but the production company is already releasing information regarding the script. Screenwriter Leigh Whinnel seemed to take great joy in dashing out the grim details.

“We, and by we, I mean me, wanted to keep the feel of the original game,” explained Whinnel. “When Lion’s Gate came to us with the idea, and by us, I mean me, I called up [James] Wan and was like ‘hey, wanna make another [explicit]-ed up movie?’ And he was like ‘[explicit] yeah!’”

Director James Wan, infamous for initating the Saw series, was also at yesterday’s panel.

“Leigh and I got thinking and we decided to go all out. We want to surprised you,” smiled Wan. “This film is going to be messed up. It’s going to be three levels above that! And then more!”

Both Leigh and Wan cut the build up and let the information bleed out onto the press. The film is to star Leigh Whinnel and Cary Elwes, the stars from the original Saw film, as they wake in an abandoned room with a board game between them. As their eyes settle, they realize the board game is, you guessed it, Operation. A mysterious voice appears in the room and instructs them to operate on the board game, but as they operate, all of their surgical mistakes will happen onto real people in other rooms.

“We want to return to the philosophy of the first Saw movie,” spoke Wan. “Watching people get killed so someone else can live is difficult for our characters. Now its our audience’s turn, it’s going to be dramatic irony to the max!”

Our two protagonists continue to remove buckets and horseshoes from the board game until Elwes’ character just cant take it anymore. He refuses to remove any more body parts from real people and the mysterious voice conducts a montage of torture scenes, warning of what happened to those that did not play.

“It’s gonna be big,” laughed Whinnel, “uh… spines exploding and legs flying off and acid and we’ve even, and by we I mean myself, thought of one scene where a guy drinks a ton of milk in a hot room and it curdles and he dies as a big piece of cheese.”

Lion’s Gate made the big surprise by beating the bloggers to the big reveal.

“You find out at the end,” grins Wan, “that they have been operating on themselves this whole time! Oh god, it’s gonna be soo good!”

Operation is scheduled to shoot this summer and will be released Thanksgiving, 2010.