The remake of Clue is one of those film projects that seems to be perpetually on the verge of becoming real. The idea has been around for years, but for one reason or another it's never seemed to go anywhere. The most recent iteration of the idea was set to include Ryan Reynolds in the cast and it had his The Change-Up co-star, Jason Bateman, siting in the director's chair. However, that idea has gone through changes of its own.
Recently it was revealed that The Muppets and Alice Through the Looking Glass director James Bobin was in talks to direct the Clue movie, as Jason Bateman had left the project. The actor/director recently explained to Collider that the movie was simply proving too big to fit into the hiatus between seasons of his Netflix series Ozark, and thus, he had to let it go. According to Bateman...
[Clue is] something that we were getting very close to starting, but as it turned out something of that size takes much, much longer to do than what the seasonal hiatus was able to accommodate. It would have pushed back the start of this season too far. So unfortunately I had to step off of that.
If you were looking forward to a Clue movie directed by Jason Bateman, and there are a lot of reasons to do so, hearing that the movie almost got moving is somewhat heartbreaking. But it's understandable why Bateman made the decision to step away. Any major theatrical film is a serious undertaking that is going to take time. While a new Clue movie likely wouldn't require a lot of location scouting, it should all take place in one building, the movie will almost certainly have a significant cast, and that means a lot of moving parts.
The Clue movie is being written by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, the Deadpool writers and frequent collaborators of Ryan Reynolds, who is also acting as producer.
Word that James Bobin is in talks to helm Clue hasn't advanced beyond that, and under the circumstances, with so much of Hollywood having come to a stop, that likely won't change any time soon. It's possible that the delay could end up making Bobin unable to direct himself. Although, Jason Bateman fans might rejoice at that idea. Bateman says that if, once Ozark is wrapped for good, the directing job for Clue happened to be available, he would be more than happy to jump back on board, so who knows? With so much uncertain about the future, it's as possible as anything.
As remake ideas go, a Clue movie certainly isn't the worst idea. The 1985 cult classic film already presented the idea that the story could have gone any number of ways by being released with multiple endings. A new Clue movie doesn't even need to be a "remake" per se. It can just be any story that includes all the various elements of the board game. It feels like, one day, we'll see this movie, but at this point it's anybody's guess when.
