Heathers movie image Winona Ryder (5).jpg

You've gone and done it again, Hollywood! Oh, you! News came out last night announcing that Fox plans to remake the 1989 cult classic dark comedy, "Heathers" for TV. The remake will be written by Mark Rizzo, whose only previous credit includes writing a pilot for a series named "Zip" for NBC, which never got picked up.  He will also be assisted by "Sex and the City" writer, Jenny Bucks, who will produce the project.  It's still unclear if this remake will be a TV movie or a TV series. What is clear though, at least to me, is that the film does not need to be remade. To begin to shake your head in disappointment as you find out some more details, hit the jump.

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Rizzo is still kicking around ideas on how to update "Heathers" 20 years later.  The original film directed by Michael Lehmann and written by Daniel Waters revolved around Veronica (played by Winona Ryder) as she rebels against her popular friends, all named "Heather", when she begins to date the new guy at school named J.D. (Christian Slater).  Soon after all of the Heathers begin dying at the hands of Veronica and J.D., who cover up the deaths by faking them as suicides.  The film is a must watch for anyone who loves dark comedies.  The film gets pretty dark as it goes along and it's also pretty damn hilarious.  This was one of those movies that I rented as a young kid after developing a crush for Winona Ryder after watching  "Edward Scissorhands" and I've been  a fan ever since.

Variety has these quotes from executive producer, Gary Lucchesi, who says that "We had the title, and talked about doing a film remake at times". He goes on to say ""But doing it for TV seemed like a fresh and original idea."  I'm not saying that this sounds like a bad idea because I am a fan of the original fan, but because I don't think a true adaptation of "Heathers" for TV would work these days. The reason is very simple too - the film is just too dark.  I don't think that a film that involves teens murdering teens and bringing guns to school would fly nowadays.

If you guys also remember there were talks for years of a "Heathers" sequel.  Director Micahel Lohmann killed off these rumors later on though by saying: "Winona's been talking about this for years - she brings it up every once in a while and Dan Waters and I will joke about it, but as far as I know there's no script and no plans to do the sequel."

Variety reports that the project is still in the script stage at Fox and that all of the original characters are expected to "return" for this TV adaptation.  We'll keep you guys updated as more details come out.

Heathers movie image Winona Ryder (3).jpg