Before they moved on to bigger and stranger things, like being the leader of an anarchistic hacker group or the manic mother of a missing child, Christian Slater and Winona Ryder starred together in the 1988 cult comedy Heathers. “The Heathers” were the queens of the school, using popularity as a tool to rule. Slater’s character, who could accurately be described as “crazy crazy”, decides that what the school needs is a little murderous rampage, and Ryder goes from accomplice to adversary after realizing how unstable Slater is. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Heathers will be reincarnated into the modern world as TV Land has ordered a pilot based on the film.
The original film, directed by Daniel Waters and written by Michael Lehmann, satirized the hectic nature of high school. The cliques, the relationships, the jealousy. Those aspects still ring true for modern times, with just a bit of modernization required. The series will take place during modern times, and instead of a group of classic “popular girls”, the Heathers will be comprised of a group of outcast who are at the top of the school food chain. Heather McNamara will be a black lesbian, Heath “Heather” Duke is a male who identifies as gender-queer, and Heather Chandler will be “big, beautiful, and proud”.
The series will be an anthology, similar to FX’s Fargo and HBO’s True Detective. Each new season will follow a new group of Heathers throughout different settings and ages. The show has not been picked up to series, but production for the pilot is scheduled to begin this fall and will hopefully find success.
Jason Micallef (Butter) wrote the pilot, and Leslye Headland (Sleeping with Other People) will serve as director for the show. After watching the film, Headland said “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.” Micallef’s involvement and the direction TV land wanted to take the series also greatly influenced Headland’s interest in the project. “The idea that i get to bring his vision to light is a dream come true.”