Last seen as chairman of underdog Welsh football club Wrexham AFC on FX’s new series Welcome to Wrexham, one of Ryan Reynolds’ upcoming projects is a remake of the cult 1985 comedy Clue. Helmed by British comedy writer Jonathan Lynn in his directorial debut, Clue was a notorious failure upon release. It took the critical and commercial success of My Cousin Vinny (1992) for Lynn’s reputation in Hollywood to recover.

As fans know, however, Clue’s trouncing at the box office was down to misguided studio decisions regarding the final cut. It was thought that releasing multiple versions of the film would maximize footfall at the cinemas. However, filmgoers were irritated rather than intrigued by the film’s three possible endings – rather than any weakness of the production. The whip-smart script, minute attention to detail, and a brilliant ensemble cast including three Academy Award nominees (Madeline Kahn, Lesley Ann Warren, and Eileen Brennan) and a soon-to-be Hollywood A-lister in Christopher Lloyd make Clue a hilarious, non-stop laugh-a-thon.

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A remake, then, will be a tall order. Here’s what the updated take on Clue has to get right.

Keep the Comedy, Dialogue, and Energy Moving at a Swift Pace

     Paramount Pictures 

Director Jonathan Lynn had an impeccable comedy pedigree, having cut his teeth on the award-winning BBC satire Yes, Minister during the early 1980s. Yes, Minister’s lampooning of the inner workings of the British government relied on lightning-quick exchanges of circular reasoning and politics-speak between the kindly but wet-behind-the-ears minister Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington) and dyed-in-the-wool policy wonk Humphrey Appleby, played by Nigel Hawthorne (The Madness of King George, Amistad).

Lynn wanted to bring some of the fraught, chaotic energy of Yes, Minister to his new creation and instructed the cast to deliver their lines at breakneck speed. And it shows. The most common cut of the film weighs in at just 96 minutes and doesn’t drag for a moment. Any remake would do well to preserve the extraordinary energy of the original.

Keep the Story of Clue Set in the 1950s

How do you make a film out of a board game, anyway? With even less to go on than the Super Mario film that bombed eight years later, Lynn and co-writer John Landis pulled a rabbit out of their hat. The duo weaved a colossally confusing murder mystery in a stately house somewhere in New England with six board game characters and the estate’s staff. The latter of which was played by Colleen Camp (as Yvette, the maid), Tim Curry (as Wadsworth, the butler), and Kellye Nakahara (as The Cook, or Mrs. Ho).

The glue that holds the plot together is the political paranoia of the McCarthy era. Set in 1954, concern over the Red Scare is everywhere and brings together the six dinner guests. They are all outwardly respectable, upstanding members of society and strangers to one another. Yet they are inextricably intertwined with the levers of power in Washington in an outrageous blackmail scheme.

But there’s another reason why keeping this quintessentially 1950s premise would be a good idea. Clue is, quite simply, visually and aurally stunning, with the cast decked out in period costumes, not to mention the classic cars, the gothic mansion in which they spend the evening, and the period hits playing on the gramophone, all making for a wonderful viewing experience. To drop the central premise and take the setting out of the 1950s would make Clue, well, not Clue.

Get Wadsworth’s Casting Right

Frankly, recasting anyone in Clue will be a tricky proposition. From Eileen Brennan’s buttoned-up Mrs. Peacock to the bumptious Colonel Mustard played by Martin Mull to Better Call Saul star Michael McKean’s accident-prone Mr. Green, everyone pulls their weight, and the ensemble plays off each other beautifully.

But at the heart of Clue is the impeccable performance of Tim Curry as Wadsworth, the butler. The star of The Rocky Horror Picture Show has shown enormous range over the years, from straight-up screwball comedy as Gomez Addams opposite Daryl Hannah in The Addams Family Reunion (1998) to drama, playing the naive submariner Dr. Petrov opposite Sean Connery and Sam Neill in The Hunt for Red October (1990).

But one gets the feeling that Curry’s talents are best exercised in comic roles. As Wadsworth, Curry does an excellent job, somehow coming over as smarmy and supercilious yet sympathetic. Later, the film also gives Curry a chance to show off his physical comedy skills, particularly in the final act, which largely consists of Wadsworth frantically recounting the events of the evening to an increasingly puzzled group of guests.

Finding someone to fill Curry’s shoes will be difficult, but British director (and Sacha Baron Cohen collaborator) James Bobin is presumably on the case. No details of casting or release date have yet come to light.