Move over Battleship, trolls and Ouija boards. Feature films based on things like toys and games are so three years ago. People are on a whole other tip now, and it’s about time we started adapting themed restaurants for the big screen, don’t you think? That’s right, themed restaurants. To the big screen. A themed restaurant.
Sorry for all the brain-exploding repetition just then. Deadline reports that production companies Benderspink and Broken Road have teamed up to inexplicably acquire the rights to make some kind of a film out of the Medieval Times franchise of “dinner and tournament venues.” (That sounds much more refined than “theme restaurant,” doesn’t it?) The companies are putting together a package to bring around to different studios, hoping to get someone to blindly jump into this project with their wallets wide open.
Seeing as how there are only nine locations, perhaps you’re unfamiliar with the brand. Essentially, you’re transported back into the titular “times,” watching professional character actors dress up as knights and challenge each other in jousting and swordfighting tournaments, all for the enjoyment of diners sitting in the stadium seats surrounding the action. The franchise will see its 30th anniversary this December, so what better way to celebrate than to slap an arbitrary plotline on it.
I suppose we should all count ourselves lucky that no one is trying to adapt “Karaoke night at Applebee’s” or “birthday party at Chuck E Cheese,” but this is a very silly silver lining. Though Medieval times was featured in Zach Braff’sGarden State, its most famous celluloid appearance was in Ben Stiller’s 1996 dark comedy The Cable Guy, which featured Jim Carrey doing his food-faced Silence of the Lambs bit that refuses to exit my memory banks. You can check out that scene in its entirety below.
