A Cruel Intentions TV Show Is the Latest Unnecessary Hollywood Reboot
We loved the movie. So why ruin it?
It’s a cruel world.
Hollywood continues to troll us by taking perfectly decent cultural products from earlier generations and repackaging them for contemporary audiences. The latest victim is Cruel Intentions, the excellent 1990s thriller/romance whose appeal was almost fully in the casting of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Selma Blair, Ryan Phillipe, and an adorable Reese Witherspoon (who remains just as adorable, FWIW). Also, Reese and Ryan met and fell in love on the set of Cruel Intentions, and a planned reboot will likely bring up painful memories of a lost romance. Why would anyone want to hurt them?
According to Variety, NBC has acquired a script adaptation and has a “significant commitment” from Cruel Intentions writer-director Roger Kumble. The TV series will pick up roughly 16 years after the movie left off, bringing us right to present day, and will focus on the son of Annette Hargrove (Witherspoon) and the late (SPOILER) Sebastian Valmont (Phillipe.)
Is it the worst idea for a TV reboot of an almost-classic movie? No, but we’re still tired of this.
Still, there’s a silver lining: Now we all have an excuse to watch the video for Blur’s Coffee & TV, which was on Cruel Intentions‘ epic soundtrack:
Photos by Everett Collection