During the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards this past weekend, Jason Bateman took home the prize for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for his work on Ozark, and now Deadline has reported that he's looking to take those behind-the-scenes skills back to the big-screen as he's currently in early talks to direct Disney/Fox's upcoming live-action adaptation of the Hasbro board-game Clue.
In addition to potentially taking on directing duties, Jason Bateman is also looking to star in the film alongside Ryan Reynolds (DETECTIVE PIKACHU), who has been attached to the project for well over a year. At the time, the project was looking to be scripted by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who have worked with Reynolds quite a bit over the course of the two DEADPOOL movies, LIFE, and the upcoming 6 UNDERGROUND, but it appears that Jason Bateman might be the one to develop the CLUE script with Reynolds this time around. That said, this is still early days and likely a ways off as Bateman just began production on the third season of Ozark. Should Bateman take the gig, this wouldn't be his first big-screen outing in the director's chair as he also helmed BAD WORDS and THE FAMILY FANG.
When asked about the project last year, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick had teased that CLUE might emerge as an R-rated film. "It will have elements of [the original movie], but it’s important that we don’t try and just rehash it. We want to build on it. We want to take some of what makes it fun and funny, but then we want to do our own thing," the pair explained. "It’s about finding that balance. Hopefully we don’t upset the Clue-hounds because there are a lot of them apparently. We didn’t realize this until we signed up." Now that the project has fallen under Disney's roof thanks to their acquisition of 20th Century Fox, an R-rated CLUE might be a little less likely.