Peacock Is Turning a Classic Board Game Into Your Next TV Obsession
Peacock is rolling the dice on Clue, handing a series order to a scripted take on Hasbro’s iconic whodunit. The move comes nearly two months after Netflix ordered a reality competition inspired by the game, with both projects from Sony.
Peacock finally pulled the trigger on a scripted Clue series. And because we live in the era of multiverses and overlapping IP, Netflix is also cooking up a Clue reality competition. Yes, two very different takes on the same board game are happening at once, and they both come out of the same rights deal. Let me break it down.
So what is Peacock's Clue?
"Clue brings a modern twist to the colorful cast of iconic characters. When a group of strangers is invited to an eccentric billionaire's murder mystery night to solve the famous questions - who, where, and with what - they quickly discover that nothing is what it seems to be, and the stakes are even higher than life or death."
That is the official logline. Translation: the classic mansion mystery gets a 2020s makeover, and the party guests are in much deeper trouble than just guessing candlestick vs. wrench.
Who is making it
- Showrunner/writer: Dana Fox (also executive producing)
- Director: Nicholas Stoller (also executive producing)
- Executive producers: Hasbro Entertainment executive Gabriel Marano; Margy Love of Fox's company Foxy, Inc.; Conor Welch of Stoller Global Solutions
Why there are suddenly two Clues
Peacock's scripted series order lands roughly two months after Netflix picked up a Clue-inspired reality competition show. Both projects are part of Sony Pictures' 2024 deal with Hasbro for movie and TV rights to the board game. So if you were wondering how two different streamers ended up playing in the same sandbox at the same time, that is the reason.
A quick Clue refresher: the 1985 movie
The board game has been on screen before: the 1985 film Clue was directed by Jonathan Lynn, who also wrote the script with John Landis. The cast was stacked: Eileen Brennan, Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, and Lesley Ann Warren. It did not light up the box office at the time, but it found a second life as a cult favorite.