This week, news hit the wires that General Mills has launched a search for talent in hopes of bringing their famed “Monster Cereals” characters to life on-screen. The cereals have been a breakfast staple for decades, and as the new “Work With the Monsters” website points out, they’ve been on the fringes of Hollywood since the 60s – but they’ve never had a big break of their own. Recent years have seen the Monsters enter the toy departments through licensing agreements with Mattel’s Hot Wheels brand, Funko, and even Big G Creative for this year’s excellent Monster Crunch Game. Now it’s finally time to take things to the next level, and that means that I need to remind the folks at General Mills about something: I have the winning pitch. In fact, back in 2015, General Mills’ Kevin Hunt invited me to call in and record a bit for the Monster Cereals episode of the A Taste of General Mills Podcast, and in this 2012 article I first mentioned publicly that I’d been sitting on a treatment for a General Mills Monsters movie – one that could easily be adapted into a binge-worthy television series.
Per the instructions on the Work With the Monsters website, I have submitted a formal contact request. On the site they state: “Once we verify your credentials, we’ll have our people reach out to your people,” so now I can only hope that they have enough to verify with. I’ve written a lot about the General Mills monsters over the years, and beyond just General Mills… I know a thing or two about monsters in general. I was once nominated for a Spike TV Scream Award for my un-produced screenplay for Death Walks the Streets (it was in pre-production, but sometimes things fall apart), a property that eventually moved into the comic book realm as a crime story set within a world where vampires, demons, zombies and werewolves were real. It was probably a little bit ahead of its time… but Monster Cereals? Those are timeless!
Call me, General Mills – I have what you seek!
