Jason Bateman Almost Directed One Of The Best Comedies Of The Century So Far

"Game Night" is one of the best comedies of the last decade, a fantastic film following a group of friends who gather for a game night before the fun turns into a nightmare after one of them is kidnapped for real. Part mystery, part David Fincher's "The Game" (but played for laughs), and otherwise all-round mayhem, the movie features Rachel McAdams at her absolute best, one of the all-time greatest side characters in Jesse Plemons' Gary, and one of Jason Bateman's strongest performances.

However, Bateman almost had a very different role in the film, which he also produced. You see, the film went into development back in 2013 when New Line bought an original script by Mark Perez (which was likewise about a game night that goes wrong), and for much of that time Bateman was slated to direct the film. As the actor once told CinemaBlend, "I had done these two sort of festival films as a director, and I wanted to direct something that was a lot more of a commercial sort of effort."

Before the film was finally released in 2018, the script went through years of rewrites, with Bateman overseeing different drafts with different writers. Everything changed, though, when Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley came aboard to write the final draft of the script. "We knew that they wanted to no longer just write things and have somebody else direct, but they wanted to direct things that they write," Bateman told Alarabiya in 2018. "So I said, 'I'll step off as a director if you guys will agree to write it'. They said yes. That turned out to be a great decision because they made a great movie."

Although Daley and Goldstein didn't receive writing credit on "Game Night," they told Vulture in 2018 that they rewrote most of the dialogue in the original script, in addition to revising the third act "comprehensively," and, most importantly, overhauling Plemons' cop character. Of course, their contributions weren't just on a script level. Sure, Daley and Goldstein had already proven adept directors with the "Vacation" reboot — a movie that unfortunately cost Daley his role in "Bones," as his character Lance Sweets was killed off due to scheduling conflicts with the film's shoot — but "Game Night" was a step up for the duo.

"Game Night" is not just a hilarious film, but also a visually inventive one full of cool flourishes that make it stand out from other comedies — particularly in its use of tilt-shift lens to make the film's settings look like an actual game board. Even smaller choices help the storytelling, like how the camera slowly zooms in on the face of Plemons' Gary every time we see him, then zooms out when focusing on other characters.

Daley and Goldstein had already been making moves in Hollywood before "Game Night," writing a pretty great screenplay for "Spider-Man: Homecoming" as well as the successful "Horrible Bosses." Though it took a while, we finally got another Daley and Goldstein-directed joint in 2023 with "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves," a film that perfectly captures the fun and chaos of playing the eponymous roleplaying tabletop game. At the time of writing, the duo are currently gearing up to helm a mysterious movie starring Ryan Reynolds titled "Mayday."