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From “Gone with the Wind” to “The Descendants,” books have led to movies. Studios snap up bestsellers and use their stories and subject matter as natural bridges to cinema. Plus, there’s the built-in fan base of readers. It’s a time-honored formula and script for creating films from “A Clockwork Orange” to the Harry Potter series.
So it’s probably no surprise that MGM is adapting bestselling author Neil Strauss’s book “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists” into a movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter and Vanity Fair.
But Adam Kornblum, a 28-year-old who works in public relations, saw something else in Strauss’s books about pick up artists with names like Mystery.
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A Bellmore resident, Kornblum sawthem as the perfect inspiration for a game that would mix social networking (while being in the same room; the real kind, not online) with dating, getting to know one another and seeing how well people already know each other. It would be a game about seduction, a party game adults could play.
So Kornblum contacted and teamed with Strauss, who lives in Los Angeles, to develop “The Game” into a board game they could use to reach the audience for the book that already made it onto the New York Times bestseller list and others.
After the book inspired a movie and a reality show, an actual game may have been, if not inevitable, at least logical.
“Neil says in his book people were playing it as if it was a game. It screamed at me, ‘It’s time to make this a real game,’” Kornblum said. “That’s the irony of it. It was so obvious to me.”
“Who’s Got Game?” officially hits the shelves at Barnes & Noble today. It’s also available at BN.com, Amazon.com and NeilStraussPartyGame.com. This is the second game Kornblum collaborated on, after “Charge Large,” a game based on credit cards, which Hasbro released in 2009.
He’s releasing “Who’s Got Game?” through his own company, Ark’s Mind. Although most people may think of Barnes & Noble as a book store, it also has large games sections at its 450 stores. And Strauss, who has written for publications ranging from Rolling Stone to The New York Times, has built up a following along the way.
“I wanted to call it The Game Game, but was wisely outvoted,” Strauss joked about what he calls “a board game based on the tactics, techniques, and social dynamics” described in his books.
Half regular game and half party game, “Who’s Got Game” is meant for adults age 18 and up.
Players use a deck of 270 cards, card holder, notepads, pencils, scorepad and sand timer to compete and collaborate. It may sound a little bit like speed dating while keeping score; it’s actually designed to be played by people who form teams with partners.
“It’s everything you wish was in his book,” Kornblum said. “Every step of the way, through every card, we went through them. We’d say, ‘That went well. People didn’t like that one.’”
Kornblum is a kind of gametrepreneur, seeking to develop games that tie in with larger subject matter.
He said that after reading Strauss’ books “The Game” and “Rules of the Game,” he decided to try to invent a game, at once to be at ease with people and create a product. “I started playing it with my friends, going through potential cards,” he said.
Yes, he used the game at least initially to help himself break the ice. But he found it not only worked on that level, but as a product. When Kornblum believed he had refined the basic game enough, he contacted Strauss on Facebook and via email.
“It had to be just as fun for men to play as women,” Strauss said. “In other words, it had to be a party game that’s primary purpose is fun.”
Strauss’ book “The Game” has developed into a brand in its own right, winning praise and criticism for its portrayal of pick-up artists.
MGM brought in Brian Koppelman and David Levien, who collaborated on A Solitary Man, Rounders, Ocean’s Thirteen and the Girlfriend Experience, to develop the script and direct “The Game.”
And the book already inspired (what else?) a reality show: VH1 turned “The Game” into “The Pick Up Artist” starring Mystery, a main character in the books.
“It turns the evening into a memorable adventure,” Kornblum said of “Who’s Got Game.” “It’s not a matter of being right or wrong. It’s a matter of having a good time.”
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