Heathers, the cult classic that armed us with brilliant lines like “what’s your damage?” and “fuck me gently with a chainsaw,” is being remade into a new anthology series for TV Land.
The dark comedy, which first premiered in 1988, was originally directed by Michael Lehman and starred Winona Ryder as Veronica, a girl navigating the very fucked up world of high school popularity with her cruel friend group, The Heathers. Enter baby-faced Christian Slater as maniacal bad boy J.D., and you’ve got a hilariously morbid look at the teenage social order, the effects of bullying and a series of accidental murders made to look like suicides.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the remake will be directed by Leslye Headland, best known for her films Sleeping With Other People and Bachelorette. Headland, speaking to THR, expressed her excitement about the project: “I related with it so much. I can’t believe they got away with so much. The movie was a huge influence on an entire generation and it’ll be nice to introduce this to a new generation.”
TV Land has confirmed that the series will be set in the present, so we’ll have to say goodbye to those fabulous blazers (I dream of the day when I’ll be able to pull off shoulder pads like that), but this remake won’t be just another rough copy-and-paste of the original movie with an updated wardrobe.
Our new clique of evil Heathers will turn the classic high school hierarchy on its head. No more skinny white girls with long blonde hair, it’s the outcasts that rule this place. Heather Duke will be genderqueer (their birth name is Heath), while queen bitch Heather McNamara will be a black lesbian and, lastly, Heather Chandler will break down our skinny girl beauty standards with “a body like Martha Dumptruck.”
I know, I know, this trend of remaking every single movie we’ve ever loved for the small screen is really fucking annoying (First Wives Club or Picnic At Hanging Rock anyone?), but this show giving us a lot to be excited about.
This is also not the first time someone’s tried to remake this cult classic. In 2009, Bravo attempted a reboot called The Ashleys about the daughters of the surviving Heathers becoming the next generation of mean girls, but it flopped. In 2014, there was also an Off-Broadway adaptation called Heathers: The Musical, which was great, but was also not on anyone’s radar unless you were in New York City at the time.
Production for the pilot is set to begin this fall, and while there’s no word yet on casting, we’ll keep an eye out — and pray that TV Land will keep the scrunchies and the croquet. Until then, you can re-watch this 80s gem on Netflix.
Photos via Tumblr
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