By Heathers starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater is one of the great cult movies of the 1980s. It’s a pitch black dive into the worst aspects of high school and its clique mentality. Heathers was adapted into a stage musical in 2010, and now it’s making its journey to TV land thanks to, well, TV Land.
TV Land has ordered a pilot for a present-day version of Heathers, which will be directed by Leslye Headland (Bachelorette, Sleeping with Other People) and written by Jason Micallef (Butter). According to The Hollywood Reporter, this is the new batch of Heathers for the show:
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.
I’m all for a new take on Heathers. For years I thought that Heathers was a movie that couldn’t be made today, especially after the Columbine shooting in 1999. Yet maybe these sorts of issues about bullying, conformity, date rape, teen suicide, MTV video games, sexuality, and even teen homicide need to be looked at again through the lens of black comedy. How else can we cope in an uncaring and un-understanding world?
What’s your damage? Let us know in the comments.
[via THR]