The film industry has turned everything from troll dolls to emojis into big-screen blockbusters — and it looks like another part of Internet culture is next in line.
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According to a new report from Deadline, Paramount Players has acquired the script to Unboxing, a script from Ice Age: The Meltdown writer Jim Hecht. As the name suggests, the film will play off of the trend of unboxing videos, where people film themselves opening and unpackaging various things.
Yes, really.
The film will center around a mischievous 11-year-old Youtube star who unboxes her father’s safe as a stunt for her channel, accidentally unleashing the treacherous Puck and his evil band of tricksters on a small town.
In a way the film sounds like both a modern retelling of Pandora’s box and a play on recent kid-friendly horror franchises like Goosebumps, all with that super-topical spin that people are either going to love or roll their eyes at.
Unboxing videos have become a unique sort of beast in the Internet realm, ever since they first debuted around 2006. While early videos into the category largely dealt with clothing and technology, they since have gone on to unbox basically everything.
“We have a negative understanding of vicarious in our society—that you’re not doing your own living,” Pamela Rutledge, the director of the Media Psychology Research Center, told MentalFloss back in 2015. “[Unboxing] is a different thing. It’s more of an exploratory learning process.”
“For kids, handing them a toy ice cream parlor [for example]—it’s already done the work for you. There’s no imagination, no building, thinking, creativity, or problem solving,” she continues. “With these videos and other games, there’s learning: How are they putting it together? How are they using the Play-Doh? How are they making different creations?”
Unboxing will be produced by indie studio Pocket.watch, with former Nickelodeon and HLN boss Albie Hecht (who is also Jim Hecht’s uncle) serving as a producer. Poket.watch CEO Chris M. Williams is executive producing.
Who knows? Maybe the movie will even cover where the boxes come from.
Would you want to head to the theater to check out Unboxing? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
