Sony’s TriStar Pictures and Sony Pictures Television have closed a deal with Hasbro Entertainment to reimagine “Clue” across film and television.
The development of “Clue” is, according to the official release, “part of Hasbro Entertainment’s ongoing strategy to elevate storytelling and produce film and television based on Hasbro’s most iconic brands alongside the industry’s best talent, studios and distribution platforms.”
Hasbro’s heads of film and TV, Zev Foreman and Gabriel Marano, said in an official statement, “Sony is the perfect partner to adapt a property as culturally impactful and mystery-defining as Clue. Nicole Brown, Katherine Pope and their teams are tremendous creative collaborators and ideal partners to help us figure out after 75 years if it was Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the candlestick.”
The board game is known for its colorful characters (literally) like Professor Plum and Miss Scarlett and has been adapted over the years into a VCR game (the fourth best-selling VHS of 1985), various books, game shows, a TV miniseries and an Off Broadway musical. It was also most famously turned into a 1985 feature, written and directed by Jonathan Lynn, that has since become a cult classic (A 4K release of the film from Shout Studios quickly sold out when it was released late last year.)
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One of the most beloved board games of all time, the game (known as Cluedo overseas), was developed in 1943 by British board game designer Anthony E. Pratt and manufactured in England in 1949. Since then, there have been countless variations and re-brands (chances are your favorite movie/television show/theme park attraction has its own version of Clue), with over 150 million copies sold.
Reboots of “Clue” have been attempted before. In 2011, Universal and Hasbro teamed up for an adaptation to be helmed by “Pirates of the Caribbean” filmmaker Gore Verbinski, who would also produce. The project eventually moved to 20th Century Fox, with Ryan Reynolds, who had just established a first-look deal with the studio, looking to star in a version written by his “Deadpool” scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. Jason Bateman was also first attached to direct this version, with James Bobin coming aboard in 2020 and further rewrites on the script from Oren Uziel commissioned in 2022.
It’s unclear if the film and television projects will follow independent paths, or if they will be two facets of a larger, “Clue”-based universe. All we know is that it was probably Mrs. White in the ballroom with the candlestick.
