Is Elle Woods making her third return to the big screen? Production company MGM and Reese Witherspoon are reportedly near a deal for Witherspoon to reprise her iconic role in Legally Blonde 3.
The creative team would feature most of the same personnel from the first film, including Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith and Karen McCullah, who adapted the Amanda Brown novel for the 2001 film; both Smith and McCullah are in final talks to write the script, Deadline reports.
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Legally Blonde‘s original producer, Marc Platt, and his Platt Productions president Adam Siegal are reportedly producing, joined this time by Witherspoon and her Hello Sunshine media brand.
Script writing is set to start immediately on the new flick, with the next order of business to secure a director.
Witherspoon told E! News in January 2017 that she was totally on board for a third film and looked forward to the idea of it.
“I do think it’s a good time to do it,” the Academy Award-winning actress said. “I think women need that kind of positivity right now.”
She went on to add that it would need someone “really clever” to come up with a good script.
“We’ve thought about it,” she said at the time. “I need somebody really clever to come up with a great idea and we’ll do it.”
It seems as if she found who she was looking for in Smith and McCullah, as the movie will reunite the two women who initially started out as a writing team, penning successful, iconic comedies like Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You and House Bunny.
Legally Blonde debuted in 2001, with the sequel, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde coming out two years later. The hit stage musical continues to tour, 17 years after the movie debuted at box offices. Deadline reports that the original grossed $141 million globally on an $18 million budget, with the sequel raking in $124 million on a $45 million budget.
The third edition of Legally Blonde will “be much in the spirit of the first film, in which Woods’ idealism and pink-dominant wardrobe prevailed over the cynicism and snootiness all around her after the freshly dumped former sorority sister heads to law school,” writes Deadline‘s Mike Fleming Jr.
In Red, White & Blonde, Elle took on Washington, D.C. and animal testing laws, and the third film will reportedly be in the first film’s main vein of female empowerment.
In 2017, Witherspoon spoke about being a woman in the United States under a Donald Trump administration.
“It’s a great privilege to be a woman in America,” she said. “We have many rights and freedoms that a lot of women don’t have all over the world. I try to celebrate that. I try to live that to its utmost, particularly the freedom of speech, being able to express myself, create shows like this to show how important women are in our world. That’s what I try to focus on.”
