The Crazy Story Of How “Clue” Went From Forgotten Flop To Cult Triumph
The Crazy Story Of How “Clue” Went From Forgotten Flop To Cult Triumph
Author: Adam B. Vary (BuzzFeed News) · Published: September 2, 2013 (updated December 10, 2015) · URL: https://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/something-terrible-has-happened-here-the-crazy-story-of-how
One-line: How a board-game movie built around a gimmick of separate endings in separate theaters flopped in December 1985 and then became a cult favorite through cable reruns and word of mouth. Told through interviews with the writer-director, the producer and most of the surviving cast.
Saved to Kyle’s Apple Note “Things To Internet” (c. 2012–2013) as “An oral history of Clue.” See the identification note in this page’s source comments: this 2013 piece fits the note’s era, and Entertainment Weekly’s 2023 oral history, the piece actually titled that, doesn’t.
Summary
Vary starts with his own first viewing on cable as a kid in the early 1990s, then states the puzzle. Clue opened December 13, 1985 as “an unambiguous flop,” grossing $14.6 million, and “today, Clue is a true cult sensation.” The piece is built from interviews with director Jonathan Lynn, producer John Landis, and cast members Michael McKean, Martin Mull, Christopher Lloyd, Lesley Ann Warren and Colleen Camp. Tim Curry was added in the 2015 update.
“The Sixth Time’s the Charm.” Landis had pitched the project for years and gone through several writers. Tom Stoppard worked on it for a year before giving up and returning his fee. Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins, who wrote The Last of Sheila together, were approached too. Landis finally recruited Lynn, co-creator of Yes Minister. Lynn had to turn six colors, six weapons and a mansion of rooms into a story, with Landis’s requirement of four separate endings, each naming a different killer and each shown in different theaters.
“A Silly-Ass Story.” Lynn set the script in New England in 1954, during the McCarthy era, so the color names could be aliases for blackmailed Washington types. Landis left to direct Spies Like Us and handed Lynn the directing job. Lynn wanted Leonard Rossiter as the butler Wadsworth and then Rowan Atkinson, whom the studio didn’t know, before casting his old schoolmate Tim Curry. Most of the rest of the cast were Lynn’s first choices. Lesley Ann Warren replaced Carrie Fisher as Miss Scarlet shortly before rehearsals.
“Like Trying to Herd a Bunch of Puppies.” Lynn screened His Girl Friday to set the cast’s clipped pace. The one mansion set took $1 million of the $8 million budget and kept the ensemble together, and the billiard room became the cast’s hangout. Lynn stuck closely to his script, with one famous exception: Madeline Kahn’s improvised “flames” speech.
“Do You Dare to Rent This Movie?” Lynn cut the fourth ending, and he calls splitting the other three across theaters “a big mistake.” Critics were confused about which ending they had seen. Afterward, Lynn says, “I was unemployable afterwards in Los Angeles,” and he was dropped from Roxanne. The comeback came through basic and pay cable (“There are no dirty words, there’s no toplessness,” says Mull), the home-video cut that plays all three endings back to back, midnight “shadowcast” screenings, and a 2013 Psych tribute episode. McKean offers the closing theory of its appeal: “It’s about murder and sex and blackmail, but you don’t really get your hands dirty because it’s so silly. It’s almost like the characters in it were based on characters in a game.”
Full text
Archived privately against link rot: ../attachments/the-crazy-story-of-how-clue-went-from-forgotten-flop-to-cult-triumph/the-crazy-story-of-how-clue-went-from-forgotten-flop-to-cult-triumph.md. The text is the 2015 update of the article; photos weren’t archived.
Connections
- Film: a case study in a film finding its audience after release. Clue failed at the box office because of how it was released and succeeded later through reruns, home video and fan screenings.