As Hollywood’s raid on the cinematic closets of yesteryear continues, this latest piece of development news shows that at least some things are changing. Most recently, announcements concerning remakes, reboots, sequels and spinoffs have been met by the wild sobs of people who grew up in the eighties.
Now, thanks to that decade having practically been exhausted of its recyclable potential, studios are turning to the nineties. The newest slice of nostalgia in the crosshairs for a do-over is the 1999 teen comedy She’s All That. And is it coincidence that the film itself is about getting a makeover? Probably.
A success at the time of release, She’s All That scored big at the box office with $100 million in receipts. Freddie Prinze Jr., then riding on a huge wave of popularity, starred as the broken-hearted jock Zach, who enters into a wager with his best friend Dean Sampson (Paul Walker) to transform the school’s ugly duckling (Rachael Leigh Cook) into a prom queen within six weeks. It’s a stereotypical teen riff on Pygmalion that managed to cement itself into pop culture as one of the decade’s best teen movies.
Teaming up to shepherd this modern day version of the movie (with “diverse leads”) to the big screen are The Weinstein Company and Miramax. Spike Lee’s wife Tonya Lewis Lee will produce via her Tonik Productions outfit and Kenny Leon (you know, the guy who directed the Steel Magnolias remake) will direct.
Why the world needs a remake of a movie that’s barely grazing its sweet sixteenth is a mystery. The quantity of writers clutching original scripts packed with unique ideas is staggering (seriously, get onto Twitter), and yet it’s still more profitable to reproduce movies that are perfectly fine with just being made once.
It’s She’s All That today, but what’s to come tomorrow? Another Bring It On?