With films based on the board games Battleship and Cluedo having already hit cinemas, and plans for Monopoly: the Movie still gently percolating in Hollywood, it should come as no surprise that another colossal brand name could soon be pushing its way into multiplexes. Studio Warner Bros is proposing a big-screen take on the Guinness Book of World Records, according to Deadline.

Danny Chun, of the US version of The Office, is currently wrestling with a script. Could it form the basis of an action adventure movie starring the world's smallest woman, Usain Bolt and that woman with the horrible fingernails? No casting details are yet available, but the project may struggle to make it out of development hell. In 2007, Paramount shelved a $175m movie based on Ripley's Believe It Or Not, directed by Tim Burton and starring Jim Carrey, just weeks before it was due to shoot. The film has not yet seen the light of day.

On the other hand, self-help books He's Just Not That Into You and What to Expect When You're Expecting have both formed the basis of successful movies, the latter having racked up a semi-decent $40m worldwide since debuting last month. Battleship, from director Peter Berg and starring Liam Neeson, Rihanna and Taylor Kitsch, was seen as something of a disappointment earlier this year despite taking nearly $300m across the globe.

Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as the Guinness Book of Records, was conceived in 1951 when Sir Hugh Beaver, the managing director of Guinness breweries, found himself trying to settle an argument over whether Europe's fastest bird was the golden plover or the grouse during a hunting outing in County Wexford, Ireland. The experience made him realise that a book chronicling world records might prove popular, and the first edition was published in 1954, with the first 1,000 copies given away free. The following year, the book went on to top the British bestsellers' list, and a 1956 US launch resulted in the sale of 70,000 copies. The film version will apparently use the heroic achievements of record holders as the basis for a narrative that should have global appeal.