Some high-profile film projects in the works include ones based on board games such as Ouija. Toy and game companies are reaping the benefits as studios pay money upfront for use of their brand names.

Hollywood, Calif. ? When “Chicago” and “Hairspray” producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan were looking for their next big movie musical last year, the two ended up in what would seem like an unlikely place: the El Segundo, Calif., headquarters of Mattel Inc.

The duo found their inspiration in the prototypes for an as-yet unreleased line of monster dolls from the toy manufacturer.

Welcome to Hollywood’s latest gold rush.

Movie studio development slates are filling up with projects based on well-known toys and games. Some high-profile projects in the works include ones based on the classic video game “Asteroids,” Lego building blocks, the View-Master toy, dolls Barbie and Stretch Armstrong, and board games Battleship, Ouija, Monopoly and Candy Land.

The practice of adapting famous source material into films has been employed since Hollywood’s early days, dating to classics such as 1939’s “Gone With the Wind.”

Books, plays, short stories, comic books and video games have been adapted in large part because they offer a rich story and set of characters. The difference with many of the toys and games being turned into movies is that they come with neither of those characteristics.

In exchange for what’s essentially a well-known brand name with a setting or theme and nothing more, studios are typically paying millions of dollars upfront and, should a movie get made, several percentage points of the movie’s gross receipts. That’s the kind of money that used to be offered only to A-list actors.

“Brands are the new stars,” said Universal Pictures Chairman Marc Shmuger, whose studio has optioned “Asteroids” from Atari Inc. and Barbie from Mattel, and has a deal to develop movies based on multiple Hasbro Inc. products. “That’s what you used to pay the star, although fortunately they’re not as expensive.”

‘Unaided awareness’

As those working at and selling to studios can testify, there’s a simple logic at work — it’s what executives refer to as “unaided awareness.” If a movie’s name has immediate resonance for consumers, then the traditional first step of a marketing campaign — selling the concept — is taken care of.

A-list actors once served the same purpose, but their influence is waning as evidenced by the failure of recent star vehicles, including “Imagine That,” starring Eddie Murphy, “Land of the Lost” with Will Ferrell, and Jack Black in “Year One.”

The biggest hit of the summer was “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” in which most of the characters are 1980s action figures.

In the midst of a recession and ongoing decline in DVD sales, studio executives have become increasingly cautious about investing hundreds of millions of dollars to produce and market a tent-pole film. That has spurred them to look to toy and game brands for security.

“As of late, to get that tent-pole made you need an intellectual property that has a certain amount of unaided awareness just for starters,” said Chris Silbermann, president of talent agency International Creative Management.

“If studios are going to spend an ungodly amount of money, they’re looking for some justification that they’re not just diving into the deep unknown,” said former Revolution Studios chief Joe Roth, who is producing an adaptation of the Mattel toy Max Steel for Paramount.

Power of nostalgia

Classic toy and game brands can also summon fond memories. As the successful ABBA musical “Mamma Mia!” showed, nostalgia can be a powerful force at the box office.

“I think that, for me, it’s as much connected with the feeling evoked by a brand as it is with the brand’s awareness,” said DreamWorks Chief Executive Stacey Snider, whose studio is developing the View-Master film. “The most successful brands are those that connect on an emotional level.”

The trend gained momentum with 2003’s surprise hit “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.” But unlike Walt Disney Co., not every studio has a theme park full of brand names, which is why several others, particularly Universal and Paramount Pictures, have been aggressively licensing them.

“We recognized that we were limited in regards to our own (intellectual property) resources internally and needed to be looking elsewhere to add some,” Shmuger said.

Although the success of three “Pirates” and two “Transformers” movies, along with the decent performance of “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” are promising signs, the films had other elements going for them. “Pirates” was a hit largely because of the Oscar-nominated performance of Johnny Depp, while “Transformers” and “G.I. Joe” had 1980s cartoons (created, ironically, to spur toy sales) from which to draw.

But the movie “Battleship” is sailing into truly uncharted waters as it heads toward a July 2011 release by Universal with only a two-sided board and plastic boats and pegs as inspiration.

The new state of affairs may be discouraging to those trying to sell original film ideas, but it’s lucrative for toy and game companies that once devoted all of their energies to simply selling the products they made.

“Did I ever imagine we’d be involved in a movie based on a toy? No,” said Meron, who’s working on the adaptation of Mattel’s new monster doll. “(But) in this atmosphere it’s good for studios to know you have something easily promotable.”