Heathers is getting a reboot. Thankfully, no-one involved in this new venture thinks remaking the movie is a good idea. Michael Lehmann’s black comedy remains one the best eighties teen flicks ever made. It’s cutting, clever and has perhaps the highest density of quotable one-liners per minute. So, what’s happening with this reboot then?
Viacom-owned cable network TV Land has ordered a pilot script for a TV anthology series loosely inspired by the 1989 feature. In case you’ve not seen it, the original film follows Winona Ryder’s character Veronica as she and Christian Slater’s J.D. navigate the struggles of high school while dealing with a trio of uber-popular girls named Heather. All three rule over the school hierarchy, and so Veronica and JD plot to off them and pass it off as suicide.
The series plans to put a drastic spin on that set-up. Described as a single-camera comedy, the heroine – a new version of the Veronica character – will face a new set of Heathers who are nothing like their movie counterparts. Instead of being the queen bees, this bunch of vicious teens are instead the outcasts.
Heather McNamara is a black lesbian; Heather Duke is a male who identifies as gender-queer whose real name is Heath; and Heather Chandler “has a body like Martha Dumptruck.” Dumptruck is the cruel nickname the kids of Westerberg High give to an outsider named Martha Dunnstock, who suffers at the hands of the Heathers.
All in all, it sounds like a great way to carry forward the brand without resorting to flat-out mimicry. Butter‘s Jason Micallef is penning the script, and sources say that each season will introduce a new group of Heathers “no matter the setting.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time the black comedy has been earmarked for adaptation. Twice before TV production outfits have attempted to revive into the serial format, one of which was said to rope in Ryder’s character – not sure if Ryder was set to return – as her own daughter faced a new group of bitchy teens. Hopefully this new version finds traction. As Heather Chandler might say, it would be very, wouldn’t it?
