Clue Reboot - What We Know So Far

1985's Clue is not only the best film to ever be adapted from a board game (of which there aren't many... yet), it's perhaps the greatest comedic murder mystery of all time. In it, a night at the secluded mansion of the awesomely-named Mr. Boddy (Lee Ving) takes a hard turn into murder most foul... but who is the culprit? The six suspects: Col. Mustard (Martin Mull), Ms. Scarlet (Lesley Ann Warren), Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn), Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd), Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan), and Mr. Green (Michael McKean).

Attempting to unravel the mystery: the butler, Wadsworth (Tim Curry), whose flop sweat-drenched explanation of who killed Mr. Boddy with what weapon at which location was an absolute highlight of '80s comedy (which we know is saying a lot). The bit was so good that three different versions of it were filmed, with different endings screened in different theaters, doubtless leading to plenty of arguments among friends who didn't see the movie together (at least until the home video version, which contained all three endings, was released).

Clue is a comedy classic, and when it was announced that the flick was being rebooted for a modern audience, we would have been skeptical — were it not Ryan Reynolds, the beloved star of the Deadpool movies and famous smartass, shepherding it to the screen as a producer. Here's everything we know so far about the Clue reboot.

The cast of the original Clue was undoubtedly its main strength, and the success of the reboot will depend largely on how hard the flick's producers kill it in that department. Fortunately, Reynolds the producer has already made the savvy move of casting Reynolds the actor, although it's not clear what role he'll be playing. We can sure field a guess, though, and we find it likely that he'll be taking on the butler role so ably filled by Curry in the original; watching a wide-eyed, babbling Reynolds careen through the ins and outs of the mystery's solution just sounds like it would be worth the price of admission on its own.

Jason Bateman (Arrested Development) had previously been attached to co-star and direct the picture, but unfortunately, he had to drop out due to scheduling issues with his Netflix series Ozark. So far, Reynolds remains the only star on board the production — but we do know that Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick will be handling the screenplay, and James Bobin (Dora and the Lost City of Gold) is in talks to direct (via The Hollywood Reporter).

There has been no official plot synopsis released for the Clue reboot, but if it doesn't involve six oddly-named individuals falling under suspicion for murdering a guy with unconventional weapons in his spacious estate, we will be very surprised. Of course, the main question here is whether the new Clue will be a period piece, or will be set in the present day; the introduction of modern technology (like, oh, off the top of our heads, the internet and smartphones) to the proceedings could certainly make for more than a couple interesting plot wrinkles.

In general, though, we would expect the plot of the reboot to hew very close to that of the original. It may serve the new film well, though, to dump the "Mr. Boddy was blackmailing everyone" motivation in favor of a more devious, complicated set of potential motives, and for this, there is an unlikely model: the season 10 Family Guy premiere "And Then There Were Fewer." The episode sent up the 1985 film (and murder mysteries in general) while fielding a truly complex, interesting puzzle of the sort that contemporary audiences may have a renewed appetite for after the recent success of Rian Johnson's brilliant feature Knives Out.

Unfortunately, the Clue reboot does not yet have a release date — and as it is very early in the pre-production stage, it looks like it will be awhile before we get one. We do know that Reese and Wernick have been laboring away on the script since the middle of 2018, although it's not like they haven't had other things cooking; the duo also penned an episode of the YouTube Premium series Wayne, the theatrical feature Zombieland: Double Tap, and the Netflix original film 6 Underground (which also starred Reynolds) between then and now, so it's entirely possible that the script for Clue hasn't even been completed yet. 

With a director in place, though, we're going to venture a guess that the flick could enter production by late this year, and we find it likely that studio Paramount could be shooting for a release in the vicinity of the 2021 holiday season. If you're as intrigued by the prospect of a Ryan Reynolds-led Clue reboot as we are, you'll probably want to bookmark this page; we'll be keeping our finger on the pulse of this production, and we'll be updating this post regularly with all the news that's fit to report.