Selena Gomez stars with two icons of 1980s cinema, Steve Martin and Martin Short, in Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, but she’s rebooting one of that decade’s most beloved romcoms for her next project. The actress, singer, and producer is partnering up with 20th Century Studios to head up a remake of 1988’s Working Girl.
As broken by Deadline, Gomez is reportedly in negotiations to produce the film, which already has screenwriter Ilana Pena (New Girl) on hand to rework the original movie’s script. There’s no word yet on if Gomez could play the lead, too, but it’s easy to imagine that the studio would be keen to get the star in front of the camera as well as behind it.
We don’t have a logline for this new project, but the ’88 effort should provide some clues as to how this one will play out. The original Working Girl starred Melanie Griffith in a star-making turn as a put-upon secretary who masquerades as her hard-edged boss (Sigourney Weaver) after her employer is kept out of the office with a broken leg. The ruse puts her in the path of a dashing business partner (Harrison Ford) and, well, you know how romcoms go.
It’s noted that this Working Girl reboot is the result of 20th Century rifling through its back catalog of 1980s IPs in the hopes of finding franchise potential. The inspiration for this strategy is obviously the enormous success that Paramount just found with Top Gun: Maverick. Deadline notes that many other studios are pulling the same trick, so expect to see news of a bunch of other ’80s remakes being on the way in the near future.
This will be the second time Working Girl has been adapted, following a short-lived sitcom — starring a pre-big break Sandra Bullock — in 1990. Gomez’s movie is expected to release as a Hulu exclusive.
