When it was announced last week that Margot Robbie will follow up the success of Barbie with a film based on Monopoly, my heart sank, did not pass go, and did not collect £200. Robbie’s production company will partner with Hasbro, just as the Barbie film was an initiative from rival toy company Mattel. Barbie was criticised for being little more than a 114-minute toy ad, but it did so well at the box office – buoyed, significantly, by a $150m marketing budget, which was larger than that spent on making the film – that a glut of similar titles are planned: a Barney film produced by Daniel Kaluuya, a Polly Pocket film written and directed by Lena Dunham, and a film based on the card game Uno. Robbie is also making a film version of The Sims video game, while Hasbro has licensed a Play-Doh feature film, a cinematic adaptation of an inert substance.
Where does it end? Why not make Alpro vegan yoghurt into a series of detective novels? Why not write an opera about the Adidas Predator football boot? Or, for that matter, why not “imagineer” your way to full 360, helicopter-vision integrated brand synergy and make a football boot inspired by Wagner’s Ring cycle, or a Raymond Chandler-themed yoghurt? It is almost as if the gatekeepers of popular culture have completely run out of ideas. All that remains is a kind of infinite consumer ceilidh, where brands line up and take it in turns to partner with one other for 15 minutes of coverage and social media consternation. We’re told that capitalism is all about innovation, disruption and the unbridled individual genius of the human mind. So why do I now turn a corner in London’s West End and half expect to see a billboard for Marmite: The Musical, next to a pop-up shop selling Nespresso x Nike limited edition streetwear?
The Monopoly film seems a naked play for nostalgia, the easiest and laziest of wins, but it is also The Way Things Are Done Now. Hollywood’s risk-averse allergy to new scripts makes it easier to simply iterate a winning formula and a recognisable brand name over and over, until we all die of boredom. This has been a growing problem for the last 20 years (of the highest-grossing 50 films of all time, more than 40 are sequels, prequels, reboots or remakes, or form part of a bankable cinematic universe like Marvel or James Bond). Pop culture is increasingly reduced to a series of lukewarm ads, theatreland is all jukebox musicals, and even our emaciated high streets and public spaces are being filled up with “immersive brand activations”. In central London you can visit the escape room Monopoly Lifesized, or attend the Shrek’s Adventure! experience, or cringe your way through Faulty [sic] Towers: The Dining Experience.
This is an evolution in consumer capitalism whereby marketing departments make all the decisions, and product design is an irrelevant afterthought. It mirrors the infantilising idiocy of “brand collabs”, where two unlikely brands from different fields produce a one-off product. You might have noticed, on a recent trip to the shops, Lynx x Marmite deodorant, Mr Men x Carex Tutti Frutti hand wash, or Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing x Crocs (yes, that is salad dressing-branded footwear). It speaks to a malaise that goes beyond novelty deodorants and the films we watch. The author and academic William Davies summarised this absurd state of play in 2022: “Britain’s capitalist class has effectively given up on the future,” he wrote: abandoning investment in R&D, new ideas, skills, technologies and products, or innovation of any kind – instead wringing every last drop from the assets they already own.
Rather than an economy dedicated to forging new ideas, we have one better characterised as “rentier capitalism”, whereby income is generated not by productive activity, but through the ownership and renting out or licensing of a scarce asset of some kind – which could be housing, but could also apply to a beloved family board game. This risk-averse attitude has become increasingly dominant when it comes to intellectual property (IP) – whether that property is a child’s toy, the back catalogue of a dead pop star, or the proprietary recipe for a spreadable yeast extract. IP rentierism is the only show in town.
It’s not that great art or great produce can’t ever be made in these circumstances. The Lego Movie, released in 2014 – and probably responsible for a lot of the current “film of a child’s toy” silliness – was an entertaining and clever film. So was Black Panther, one of the many films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yet there is something about IP rentierism that feels new and corrosive. It is as if consumer capitalism has understood its own creative limitations, and how easily distracted we are – thanks in no small part to its own technological innovations – and so only the most idiotic spin on a bankable and familiar product can grab our attention. It is at best unedifying, watching the masters of our economy squeeze every last meagre drop from the assets they own, and reducing the arts to unadulterated marketing. Is this what thousands of years of human storytelling was leading up to? The arc of the cultural universe is long, and it surely does not bend towards Monopoly: The Movie.
Dan Hancox is a freelance writer, focusing on music, politics, cities and culture
