Good news for the precocious—and the precocious at heart—today, as HBO Max announced that it’s gearing up on development for an adaptation of Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game. The 1978 Newbery Award winner challenged its characters (and readers) to unravel the last will and testament of paper magnate Samuel Westing, an obfuscation-filled document that promises to leave his vast fortune to whoever can solve his titular conundrum.
Julie Corman, who owns the rights to the book, and who previously produced a TV adaptation of it—1997's Get A Clue—will serve as an executive producer on the project. The Westing Game is probably a better fit for TV than a movie, though; the novel tracks 16 different potential “heirs” to Westing’s fortune, each attempting to decipher his murder and gain his fortune. Fingers crossed that the show will also be able to maintain the novel’s fairplay mystery format; much of the joy of the book is in having access to many of the same clues as the characters, allowing the reader to follow along with the same deductions being lobbed around by the various bewildered inhabitants of the Sunrise Towers apartment complex.
No word yet on when this prospective adaptation might eventually make its way to air.