Paramount picks up the Magic 8-Ball

A few years ago Universal Pictures was planning to make a romantic comedy about The Magic 8-Ball, but that’s now changed. According to Vulture, Paramount Pictures has picked up the rigths and is planning a different approach:

“We’re told that Shadyac is off the project, Universal is gone, and now Paramount has assigned as producer its former production chief, Brad Weston (who, appropriately, has a head like a cue ball); Mattel suits Tim Kilpin and Barry Waldo will be exec producers, because it takes two toy executives to really explain the inner motivations of a psychic piece of plastic. The Paramount plan, we hear, is to turn Magic 8 Ball into a sort of live-action National Treasure–style action-adventure movie.”

Weston has hired Jon Gunn and John Mann to write the script, but no word on who’s in talks to direct.