"Heathers"
Featuring a new take on the 1989 Winona Ryder and Christian Slater cult hit.
TV Land is breaking out its diary.
The Viacom-owned cable network has put into development a comedic anthology based on the 1989 cult feature film Heathers, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The original film was written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehmann and centered on Veronica (Winona Ryder) and rebel boyfriend J.D. (Christian Slater) and their trials and tribulations dealing with the social order in high school.
TV Land's take is described as a black comedy that takes place in the present day. It features a new set of popular-yet-evil Heathers — only this time the outcasts have become high school royalty. Heather McNamara (originally played by Lisanne Falk) is a black lesbian; Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty) is a male who identifies as gender-queer whose real name is Heath; and Heather Chandler (Kim Walker) has a body like Martha Dumptruck.
Written by Jason Micallef (Butter), the single-camera entry hails from Lakeshore Entertainment's Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi. Insiders say the anthology component will be similar to FX's Fargo and feature a new group of "Heathers" — no matter the setting.
The TV Land incarnation marks the third time Heathers has been rebooted for the small screen. Bravo teamed with Jenny Bicks (Sex and the City, The Big C) in 2012 for a reboot that centered on "the Ashleys," the next generation of mean girls and the daughters of the Heathers from the big-screen take. The hourlong drama, which hailed from Sony Pictures Television and Lakeshore's Rosenberg and Lucchesi, was scrapped in 2013. That marked the second time Bicks and Lakeshore took on Heathers after previously selling the project to Fox in 2009.
Heathers becomes TV Land's second reboot in its current development slate. It joins pilot First Wives Club, based on the book by Olivia Goldsmith and 1996 Diane Keaton/Bette Midler/Goldie Hawn movie about a group of divorced women who seek revenge on the ex-husbands who left them for younger women. Coincidentally, Bicks is exec producing that reboot, which takes place in modern-day San Francisco and centers on three friends and former classmates from the 1990s who reconnect after their close friend from college dies in a freak accident. When they all discover that they're at romantic crossroads, they unite to tackle divorce, relationships and life's other challenges.
Heathers arrives as TV Land has undergone a rebranding in the past year with a focus on single-camera and younger-skewing comedy after abandoning the multicamera fare (Hot in Cleveland, The Soul Man, The Exes) that helped put the cable network on the map as a destination for originals. To that end, all of its single-camera fare that has been picked up to series has gone on to earn a second season, including Younger, Teachers, The Jim Gaffigan Show and Impastor.
The cabler also has George Lopez comedy Lopez set to bow March 30 and recently picked up Melissa McCarthy-Ben Falcone comedy Nobodies — based on the lives of their Groundlings friends — and its Kyle Richards comedy to pilot. The network recently passed on comedy pilot I Shudder, starring Hamish Linklater and Megan Hilty.
Micallef is repped by WME, Underground and Stone Genow
TV Development TV Land
