The Movie With Three Endings

🔍 In the early 1980s, Paramount decided to make a movie based on Clue, the Hasbro murder-mystery board game beloved across the country. The cast included a knockout slate of comedic actors, including Tim Curry, Eileen Brennan, Christopher Lloyd, and the late, great Madeline Kahn.

Everything pointed to the movie being a surefire hit.

But before Clue even had a cast or a functioning screenplay, co-writer and executive producer John Landis, best known for Blues Brothers and Animal House, came up with an idea:

• The writers would come up with multiple endings for the movie, each one with a different killer.
• Then when it debuted, each theater would show a different ending.

… and it failed miserably. Clue just about broke even at the box office, generating $15 million.

“[We] thought that what would happen was that people, having enjoyed the film so much, would then go back and pay again and see the other endings. In reality, what happened is that the audience decided they didn't know which ending to go to, so they didn't go at all," writer-director Jonathan Lynn told Buzzfeed.

🤔 Did the movie *actually* fail?

Yes, Clue was a box office flop – but it’s since become a cult classic. In the early ‘90s, the movie became a staple for cable programmers eager to fill in non-peak time slots with inexpensive movies. And its availability on home video only helped to boost the film’s popularity.

• The big difference is that with both of these formats, you could watch all three endings back-to-back. "It was a big mistake to release it with separate endings," Lynn says. "Because you only get the pleasure out of all the different endings if you see them all."

So which ending is the “correct” one? Debate rages on.