Sarah Michelle Gellar knew the Cruel Intentions reboot was doomed from day one
Gellar says she's grateful the ill-fated NBC sequel series didn't work out
Aux News Sarah Michelle Gellar
Once upon a time, there were several attempts to recapture the magic of Cruel Intentions: a prequel movie (starring Amy Adams, of all people, as Kathryn Merteuil); a third sequel film that moved away from the original characters; a jukebox musical; and an NBC series, one which would have brought Sarah Michelle Gellar back as the conniving Kathryn.
The television show never came to pass, and for Gellar, that’s a good thing. “That was a whole crazy time,” she tells The New York Times in a new interview. “Nothing against NBC, but Cruel Intentions is straight streaming. On the first day, I was like, ‘This isn’t working.’ It’s just not a network show. And if it is a network show, it’s not my Cruel Intentions. So, I was actually grateful.”
The actor isn’t sure she’d want to revisit Cruel Intentions again, but her Kathryn lives on within her Do Revenge character–Gellar confirms she “absolutely” played the headmaster as an older Kathryn. “I always say, I wonder what Kathryn’s doing now? Who does that person become? But we really wanted her to be a champion of women, too. She is building women up for what you have to face as a female.”
But unlike Camila Mendes’ Drea, a clear Kathryn acolyte, Gellar doesn’t think her teen queen mean girl would have gotten a happy ending. “I think that not everything in life gets wrapped up with a happy bow. There was never going to be a happy ending because I don’t think she would allow herself to have it,” she says. “The youth of today look at it differently. They feel like they deserve the happy ending, and thus, they will go out and get it. I think that’s a really positive thing.” Maybe it’s finally time to close the book on Cruel Intentions (unless that Amazon Freevee reboot ever gets off the ground).
28 Comments
Nah, she’d have landed on her feet. Her family would have sent her off to college on the west coast or in Europe to get out from under her scandalous behavior. She’d pretend it was no big deal to new people she met and carry on bulldozing her way through life.But she’s right about that not being a network show. How boring would that have been?
“Kathryn is loose! She kissed multiple guys!”
Yeah. She would have been Jessica Biel’s Laura from The Rules of Attraction.Tell me Kathryn never said, “Whoops, leaky pipes.”
Your comment is definitely accurate. It makes me think of in Game of Thones *spoiler* (I guess, for those who haven’t seen it but are still planning on it) where the whole first season is driven by the need to cover up the fact that Joffrey is the product of incest. Then in season 2 (I think) Stannis finally tells everyone… and its met with a collective shrug. No one cares and it doesn’t affect anything. I imagine, especially in the age of trump, this is exactly how it would have played out for Kathryn too. She goes away, transfers schools, chalks everything up to a misunderstanding and some bad faith school admins and continues her life unaffected.
What else is the point of being from money?Or at least good as your job a la Pete trying to blackmail Don on Mad Men.
The Amy Adams prequel/sequel was actually the first three episodes of a show called Manchester Prep that Fox canceled before it even aired edited together along with some new footage containing nudity to make the film. The lesson is not to try to make Cruel Intentions into a network show.
Oh wow I never knew that – I learned something today! It makes sense because I remember watching the movie and the R-rated stuff definitely felt weirdly jarring (and not just because I was a pubescent male at the time).
Came to the comments to see if I was the only weirdo who knew this.
I’m so old I remember reading about the show in the fall tv preview issue of TV Guide! I wonder if the Fox executives actually watched the movie before they green lit it.
That’s what TV Tropes calls “narm” (It’s a reference to the show Six Feet Under where a character undergoing a brain hemorrhage is trying to explain his arm is numb but says “narm” over and over before collapsing). In the larger sense it is any scene or visual that is trying to evoke a serious emotional response but which just feels unintentionally hilarious.
Oh shit. I thought I was the only one who had a “narm” in-joke with my friends. That’s hilarious.
I laughed and pointed at the screen during the final scene of Arrival. It was opening weekend, and my birthday, so I was dee-runk.
…..
The people in front of me were not amused.
That was me last week when my friends and I were at a bar where an Oasis tribute band was playing. They announced they were going to “slow it down a little” and did a cover of NIN’s Hurt. I burst out laughing and a bunch of fucks in their early 20s turned and looked at us.
I was the only person to laugh in the theater when James Remar air choked Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath.It was the only good part of the whole damn movie.
Hear me out. What if there was a reboot of Cruel Intentions, but rather than being about American teenagers in the 1990s, it was about French adults in the 1700s?
Sacre Bleu! Not Another Reboot!
Wasn’t that Being John Malkovich?
I got a casting idea for your movie. How about we get Keanu Reeves!
As the Kathryn character! I like it.
That is a dangerous… idea for a reboot
do revenge really sucked, but Gellar was great in it. She should have been the main.
It could have been good as an 80-minute comedy. But they drug it out to two hours, added romantic subplots and it was just painful
truly painful. Maya Hawke is fucking rad, but girly was struggling in this. Camilla turned out the best she could with it. Movie was weirdly unaware and too aware all at the same time.
I can never get over Camila’s eyebrows. And hopefully for her, she can someday play not-CW-Riverdale’s-Veronica to see if she has any other talent.
She’s not wrong.I watched the unaired pilot a few years back and fuck it’s bad. Geller and Peter Gallagher are by far the best parts of it but nothing else works in the slightest.
Odd they don’t even mention the upcoming Dangerous Liasons series on Starz.
God I hate all the ads on your site that make it difficult to get to the comments. It’s like a spaghetti war! Just throw stuff all over! And you make bank on this? Can’t imagine anyone purposely clicking on any of that trash. Anyway, SMG does not look like the person I met on a horror shoot in Central Texas years ago. She didn’t have a condom, I said no glove no love. She’s had work done. Wonder if she fixed that problem down under…..