When Paramount released Clue back in 1985, they were a bit ahead of their time – these days, it seems like the key element for getting a movie green-lit is #brand #awareness, which is why we’ve got so many movies with seemingly uncinematic sources, like action figure lines and self-help books and video games and, of course, other movies. But back in 1985, the idea of a movie based on a board game seemed awfully goofy (even when paired with a gimmick in which different theaters received prints with one of three possible endings), and it tanked.
But as Fred Willard put it in A Mighty Wind, “that’s good, because that’s how you establish a cult.” Clue found its audience on home video and HBO, where its three endings were packaged together, and fans memorized its lightning-fast dialogue and silly repartee. And so, like any movie from an earlier era that people remotely liked, there is now talk of a remake.
That talk’s been in the air for a while now, with the film previously set up at Universal, but that project fell apart in 2011. Now The Tracking Board is reporting it’s back on at 20th Century Fox, being developed by gamesmaker Hasbro and Blind Wink, the shingle of director Gore Verbinski, whose previous credits (The Ring, The Lone Ranger, three Pirates of the Caribbean movies) make him a natural for the snappy banter of Clue redux.
(Their piece also includes this depressing nugget: “Hasbro’s development board also includes adaptations of Monopoly, Risk, and Candy Land, not to mention the ever-expanding Transformers universe at Paramount, another G.I. Joe sequel in the works, and multiple series on the TV side.” Hurray for Hollywood…)
At any rate, they should definitely keep remaking everything, it’s going great so far.