Yeah, my least favorite way to run any kind of fantastical property. It can be done well enough (Barbie and I guess the Sonic movies, though I haven’t personally seen them), but it hems you in to a certain set of themes and plots, and often the budget considerations that are usually at work infect other areas of the process and production.
A series based on Clue, however?
I think the movie already showed how the tone and setting could work. Coming up with decent performances and having it play out in a way that’s interesting over a season or more will be the trick. I imagine they’ll try for a vibe similar to Only Murders in the Building and/or Knives Out.
Clue would be fun as a season of alternate timelines, like how the game works. There’s always a high-class mid-century party where someone ends up dead. Same setting, same characters, usually the same victim… but significant variation in backstory and circumstances.
One bit that’s only possible in this format is replacing an actor for an episode. Professor Plum shows up and he’s looking a lot more caucasian than usual. We the audience know he’s not the real guy, but the characters have the usual exchanges. ‘Have you met him before?’ ‘No, only read his work.’ You could even do a double red herring, where fake Plum did not kill Mister Boddy… because Mister Boddy is not dead. But the real Plum is.
Yeah, my least favorite way to run any kind of fantastical property. It can be done well enough (Barbie and I guess the Sonic movies, though I haven’t personally seen them), but it hems you in to a certain set of themes and plots, and often the budget considerations that are usually at work infect other areas of the process and production.
I think the movie already showed how the tone and setting could work. Coming up with decent performances and having it play out in a way that’s interesting over a season or more will be the trick. I imagine they’ll try for a vibe similar to Only Murders in the Building and/or Knives Out.
Clue would be fun as a season of alternate timelines, like how the game works. There’s always a high-class mid-century party where someone ends up dead. Same setting, same characters, usually the same victim… but significant variation in backstory and circumstances.
One bit that’s only possible in this format is replacing an actor for an episode. Professor Plum shows up and he’s looking a lot more caucasian than usual. We the audience know he’s not the real guy, but the characters have the usual exchanges. ‘Have you met him before?’ ‘No, only read his work.’ You could even do a double red herring, where fake Plum did not kill Mister Boddy… because Mister Boddy is not dead. But the real Plum is.