Netflix wins rights to Hasbro Entertainment’s unscripted Monopoly competition series

Netflix has won the rights to adapt board game Monopoly into an unscripted competition series

Netflix is set to adapt the Hasbro-owned board game Monopoly as an unscripted competition series.

The streaming giant picked up the Hasbro Entertainment project following a competitive bidding process, according to Deadline, which first reported the news. Netflix declined comment.

Hasbro Entertainment has seen renewed interest in some of its board game properties in recent years, with Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit also receiving remakes commissioned by The CW and produced by Lionsgate Television.

Last month, Fremantle announced it had picked up the international production and tape distribution rights to the Scrabble gameshow. Under that deal, Fremantle is producing the series for audiences outside of the US.

Hasbro Entertainment has expanded its unscripted ambitions in recent months, appointing former Sony Pictures Television exec Zach Edwin to lead a US-based division focused on non-fiction and game-based content last October.

For its part, Netflix has shown growing interest in unscripted shows that are linked to other properties with built-in brand recognition. Other titles in the works from the streamer include a Willy Wonka competition series, The Golden Ticket, inspired by Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as Squid Game: The Challenge, based on its Korean survival drama Squid Game.

Separately, Lionsgate and Margot Robbie’s production banner LuckyChap is working on a scripted feature film based on the Monopoly IP, though that has no relation to the unscripted project set up at Netflix.

Since the Monopoly board game debuted in 1935, it has sold more than 275 million copies internationally and been licensed in more than 115 countries. The property was previously owned by Parker Brothers, which was acquired by Hasbro in 1991.