Much ado has been made over the fact that Universal decided to make the beloved Hasbro board game "Battleship" into a feature film. And even though there is a slew of high-caliber talent involved in the project -- including director Peter Berg ("Friday Night Lights"), Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgård, Brooklyn Decker, [artist id="1940303"]Rihanna[/artist] and Liam Neeson, to name a few -- plenty of critics are still doubting the flick's box-office potential.

MTV News recently asked Kitsch about the skepticism and whether making a movie with such a classic name is a burden.

"I don't see [the name] as baggage," he said. "I love that people want to know more about it and so does Pete [Berg]. It was never really a thing to be discussed: 'Should we change it?' No, you buy into it, and you run with it, and I think that's Pete and my personality.

"Even when he was pitching it to me, I had a lot of creative freedom. He cast me in 'Friday Night Lights,' and I improv'd a ton on that show. It was just an incredible experience growth-wise as an actor on so many levels, so to reengage with Pete and go into this grand scale and for us to have the freedom we had -- you'll see it. We ran with that, put it that way."

Kitsch went on to say that he stays as far away from the Internet rumblings as possible, but he's happy to have people talking about the film. He promised that audiences will be in for a good time when the film opens in theaters next summer.

"You don't know what to expect with 'Battleship,' especially when we team up, Pete and I, you're going to get a lot of laughs, guaranteed," he said. "And, of course, the action is going to speak for itself. It's huge."

Check out everything we've got on "Battleship."

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