You would think that toymaker Hasbro and their various movie-making partners would have learned their lesson after the less than stellar box office performance of Battleship. That lesson being, nobody wants to see a movie about an inanimate object that has no pre-established characters, stories, or mythology. Clearly no lesson has been learned, however, because a press release put out by Sony Pictures today brings us just about the worst news ever. It seems that Sony is teaming up with Hasbro and Adam Sandler’s production company Happy Madison to bring us an animated feature version of Tonka trucks. Yes, you read that right: Adam Sandler’s buddies are going to make a movie about plastic toy trucks. Seeing as Sony is already in the process of developing feature films for other Hasbro properties like Risk and Candy Land, the fact that a toy truck movie is going to be coming our way soon shouldn’t come as a surprise, but somehow it still stings. Let’s let the president of Sony Pictures Digital Productions, Bob Osher, try to sell us on the project, and see if that helps. Osher says, “In its 65 years, TONKA has become more than a toy or a brand – TONKA trucks are a rite of passage for kids all around the world. Time spent with these toys creates memories that last a lifetime as kids are inspired to play using the boundaries of their imagination. We look forward to creating a family friendly motion picture that brings

On December 7, 1941, the naval base at Pearl Harbor was attacked by 353 Japanese planes. It was a day that lives in infamy, but now director Peter Berg has reconciled the Americans and Japanese (finally!) in the dumbest, broadest, most pointlessly explosive way possible with Battleship. This obnoxious chore of a movie suffers from two cardinal sins. One, it’s probably the smallest-feeling big movie of the past three decades. Two, it steals so much from other, better movies that there’s no doubt Universal‘s legal team spent time considering possible action. Everything from the script to the CGI are low quality, making this $200m tentpole feel like it was made for fifteen bucks and a pack of gum.

It’s early, so you probably haven’t slapped your forehead with the palm of your hand yet. That’s okay. That’s what we’re here for. The talent agency ICM has signed on Wham-O Toys, which can only mean one thing: the entire company is going to start acting. Or it means that they’re going to start prepping their properties for movie adaptations. Slip ‘N Slide: The Movie may be hosing off your front porch and annoying your eco-friendly neighbors soon enough. Measuring the absurdity of this news can’t be done with known scientific tools, so our only logical response is to go ahead and pitch our ideas for how the movies should be. Shockingly, Cole Abaius and Rob Hunter had nothing better to do and were up to the task. Here they are. Six plots for six dumb movies that will probably get made because product placement is shorthand for “story” now.

The good news is that Phil Lord and Chris Miller are on a new project. The bad news is that it’s a giant commercial for plastic squares.

You know that we’ve been pummeled into submission here in the movie news world when the announcement of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em: The Reckoning, the name I’ve made up for this movie, doesn’t even force and eyebrow into the upright and locked position. The constant stream of bad ideas coming out of Hollywood coupled with the lack of success this summer will most likely leave some non-creative, beyond the curve producers looking for work and stagger the system with whatever the next trend will be. That trend, friends, is toy robots fighting each other. According to Mattel.

Indian and Cowboy are in trouble – they’ve forgotten to get a gift for their roommate Horse on his birthday, but when they order bricks online to build a barbecue, they accidentally end up with 50 million of them delivered to their house. Meanwhile, Horse is trying to win the favor of the beautiful music teacher Ms. Longree, and Farmer Steven just wants to eat his toast and fix his tractor.

Universal hopes you’re ready for some hot naval action because they’ve set a release date and officially announced Peter Berg while be at the helm of Battleship.

Over the course of the past several months, there has been a lot of talk about G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Well, it is time to stop all the rumoring and badmouthing and start talking about a film that, in a very basic way, is good.

If you planned on seeing it before, are you less likely to now? If you didn’t plan on seeing it before, could positive critical reaction have changed your mind?

Instead of getting irate about all the new, crappy toy adaptations coming down the pipe, let’s celebrate a few toys that could be made into equally crappy adaptations!