Exclusive: Chris Evans In Talks To Star In Hungry Hungry Hippos Movie
Chris Evans is in discussions to star as the father of a girl trying to free captured hippos in a movie based on Hungry Hungry Hippos.
Former Marvel Cinematic Universe star Chris Evans is in negotiations to star in a movie based on Hungry Hungry Hippos, the popular Hasbro game that wildly mischaracterizes the hunting behavior of hippopotami. According to our trusted and proven sources, the once and future Captain America will star in the movie as the father of the actual main character, a young girl who is attempting to free a number of imprisoned hippos. Hollywood has made periodic attempts to adapt board games into feature films without much success, and it appears Chris Evans is next up to bat.
Hungry Hungry Hippos was first released by Hasbro in 1978, buoyed by the memorable jingle “If you wanna win the game/ you’ve gotta take good aim/ And get the most marbles with your hippo,” which does an admirable job of explaining gameplay. As with most board games, it does not have all that much of a plot, which is both good and bad news for the Chris Evans movie. On one hand, there is not all that much to work with in terms of storytelling, but on the other, it is not like a movie can exactly contradict the official canonical narrative of Hungry Hungry Hippos.
The Chris Evans Hungry Hungry Hippos movie will follow in the footsteps of Battleship, the Liam Neeson-Rihanna action film, and Mike Flanagan’s Ouija: Origin of Evil in trying to take board game IP and convince people to make it to theaters. Although movie studios have been trying to figure out a way to profit from the visibility of board games for decades, there has never really been a truly successful one, with perhaps only 1986’s Clue making a lasting impact on pop culture.
However, Chris Evans is a pretty big star and seems to have a willingness to stretch his range, post-Marvel. His first major project after Avengers: Endgame (in which he passed the vibranium shield on to Anthony Mackie, who will soon be starring in Captain America: New World Order) was Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, which allowed him to both play a smarmy jerk and partner up with Ana de Armas for the first time.
Both then appeared in the Netflix spy thriller The Gray Man (with the other frequent de Armas co-star, Ryan Gosling) and will be teaming back up for Ghosted, a romantic comedy action movie in which the literally superhumanly handsome and ripped Chris Evans plays a bumbling everyman who has trouble getting a second date.
There have been plans to make a Hungry Hungry Hippos since at least 2012, which appear to have gone nowhere. The idea of a popular movie being based on the game is, at least on the surface, silly enough that it was an inspired running gag in the Apple TV+ mystery series The Afterparty, but maybe Chris Evans can actually make it work. Here’s hoping Cap can do it again.
