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This Day in Pop Culture

This Day in Pop Culture for December 13

On this day in pop culture history, a board game gets its own movie, and Russell Crowe showed his beautiful mind.

December 13, 2020

2–3 minutes

1985: The First Movie Based on a Board Game

While movies based on toys like Barbie or Transformers are commonplace now, the first movie to be based around a board game came to theaters in 1985. The screwball black comedy Clue featured all of the main characters from the game including Mrs. Peacock (played by Eileen Brennan), Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn), Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd), Mr. Green (Michael McKean), Colonel Mustard (Martin Mull) and Miss Scarlet (Lesley Ann Warren). The movie also starred Tim Curry as the butler Wadsworth and Colleen Camp as Yvette the maid.

When Mr. Boddy (Lee Ving) was found dead, each of his houseguests, armed with various familiar weapons (like the lead pipe, the rope, etc.), were considered suspects.

Clue was filmed with three different endings and when the film was released, each theater had one of the three possible endings, encouraging audiences to see the movie more than once. While the movie was underappreciated and did poorly in theaters, Clue has since grown in popularity. It has been adapted for the stage and Hollywood has been kicking around the idea of a remake since 2011. We’re still waiting. (Image: Paramount Pictures)

2001: Russell Crowe’s Beautiful Mind

Based on a true story, A Beautiful Mind is based on Slyvia Nasar’s biography (of the same name) about John Nash, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and mathematician who was brilliant but struggled with schizophrenia. Produced by Brian Grazer, the drama was directed by Ron Howard which might have seemed like an odd choice since his last film was the silly How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Howard once considered Tom Cruise for the lead role but ended up choosing Russell Crowe instead. The movie also starred Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Christopher Plummer and Paul Bettany.

A Beautiful Mind was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won four for Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actress (Connelly) and Screenplay (based on material previously produced or published).