Jason Bateman has entered talks to direct, co-write, and possibly also costar in Ryan Reynolds’ Clue movie. A murder-mystery board game in which players much deduce which of six suspects killed their host, Mr. Boddy, in his elaborate manor (not to mention, in which room and with what item), Clue has been a must-have among board game aficionados since it was introduced in 1949. It eventually made the jump to the big screen in 1985, with Jonathan Lynn directing a cast led by Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, and Christopher Lloyd.
Although it disappointed at the box office, the 1985 Clue has since become a cult classic famous for its sly and often darkly cheeky wit, as well as the cast’s grandly theatrical performances and the film’s three different endings. It’s still considered one of the better (if not the best) board game movies ever made, which is why its fans have always been wary of a reboot happening. Not that this stopped Universal from trying to get a Clue re-adaptation off the ground in the late 2000s, of course.
That version, which had Gore Verbinski attached to direct, never got off the ground, and the Clue reboot later moved to Fox in 2016. Reynolds signed on to star and produce a couple years after, with his Deadpool 1 & 2 writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick handling the screenplay. Now, according to Deadline, Bateman is in discussions to direct Clue and develop the script with Reynolds. As mentioned, should he sign on, Bateman could further play a leading role in the film.
Bateman is coming off an Emmy win for directing an episode of his popular Netflix crime series Ozark this past Sunday, and received additional nods for Lead Actor and Drama at the ceremony. He’s already directed more than a half-dozen episodes of Ozark, in fact, along with episodes of several other TV shows (like Arrested Development), and a pair of critically praised films in the forms of Bad Words and The Family Fang. Both of those movies were rated R and, like much of Bateman’s output as an actor, fell on the darker side of the comedy spectrum.
This is worth pointing out since Reese and Wernick were said to be targeting an R rating with their Clue screenplay, back when they were working on the reboot. That may still be the plan now, with the idea being that Bateman and Reynolds’ script will aim for something that’s tonally in the vein of Bateman’s previous directorial efforts, or possibly even his hit 2018 action-comedy Game Night (which he only starred in). The 1985 Clue is far more risqué than its PG rating might suggest, so an R rating could be the next logical step forward for the murder-mystery-comedy franchise.
Clue does not have a release date at the moment.
Source: Deadline
