TV Land has signed off on a television-remake of the 1989 cult-classic Heathers, the Hollywood Reporter reports today.
The original movie centered around a trio of Ohio high school queens who were all called Heather. The three invite Veronica (Winona Ryder) to join, though she quickly begins to feel out of place. That feeling is maximized when she meets JD (Christian Slater), who motivates her to help murder several high school students before she stops his attempt to blow up the school. Heathers didn’t break any box-office records but was–and still is, to this day–popular among teenagers and young adults.
The new show will not only remake the genre of the movie but will also alter the time period of the original as well. Heathers the TV show will take place in 2016, with an apparent different setting than Ohio, which means fans of the original movie can kiss the Heathers’ perms and landline phones goodbye. Those will likely be replaced by messy buns and iPhones. Even the Heathers themselves, who were played by Kim Walker, Shannen Doherty, and Lisanne Falk in 1988, will be completely revolutionized to be a more diverse representation of high school-aged kids.
The lead queen of the Heathers, Heather Chandler, will no longer be the stick-skinny blonde type that she was in the original movie. Now, she’ll more closely match another Heathers character, Martha “Dumptruck,” who wore a shirt that said “Big Fun” and weighed considerably more.
The next Heather, Heather McNamara, has been turned away from her blonde incarnation as well; the crimped-haired cheerleader will now be black and a lesbian, according to The Hollywood Repoter. The third Heather, Heather Duke, may keep her hair color but will lose her gender–the last Heather will become gender-queer, though they were formally known as “Heath.”
How exactly the star of the original, Veronica, will fit into this modern revitalization of the very visually archetypal-1980’s film is still yet to be determined, though judging by the pattern, it is likely that she will look nothing like Winona Ryder.
As for Christian Slater’s murderous character, there has been no reveal as to who may take his role or what this incarnation will be either, but it is still early days at the new Heathers show.
This will be, however, the third time that someone has attempted to recreate the cult-classic into the television world. The other two tries were actually the efforts of the same team for a reboot called The Ashleys, which essentially followed the same formula–a modern take on the original movie. Lakeshore Entertainment underwent a collaboration with writer of Sex and the City Jenny Bicks, and together the two pitched–and were denied by–Fox in 2009. They then went on to take a stab with Bravo, who originally signed the project only to later drop it.
Now, Lakeshore is teaming up with fresh writer Jason Micallef to make the new Heathers possible.
The small-screen-adaptation will coincide with another one of TV Land’s projects, a television-remake of the 1990 First Wives Club.
The Heathers remake will likely begin casting for their leads and subsequent Heathers now that TV Land has given them the green light.