Heathers Being Reboot as TV Land Anthology Series

Start playing your favorite rendition of “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” because your favorite cult comedy about high school murder is on its way back to the screen!

Heathers, the 1988 Michael Lehmann film that has spawned a popular stage musical, is being rebooted as a TV anthology series on the TV Land network. The original film (written by Daniel Waters) Winona Ryder as former nerdy girl Veronica, who gets invited into a trio of popular girls at high school, known as “The Heathers.” Tiring of her mean girl life, Ryder’s character teamed up with high school sociopath J.D. (Christian Slater) and inadvertently started killing some of the worst popular kids in school, faking their deaths as suicides. Naturally, things get a little more out of hand from there.

THR describes the new series as a single-camera dark comedy, but with an anthology structure like Fargo in that each season will feature a new setup, with a new trio of Heathers as its focal point. For this initial pilot, the new Heathers will apparently be “outcasts.” As per THR:

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.

That’s quite a spin on the trio of preppy rich girls from the original film, and makes for an intriguing premise for a season. Will these outcasts be the villains and targets of assassination? Or will they be a trio of revenge-bent misfits, striking out at their More popular schoolmates? Tune in to find out!

Jason Micallef (Butter) is writing the script, with playwright-turned-indie dramedy it-kid Leslye Headland (Sleeping With Other People, Bachelorette) directing the pilot. Previous attempts to adapt the property for TV include a Fox project (scrapped) and a Bravo series centered on The Heathers’ daughters, “The Ashleys,” which were pretty much a rip-off of the Disney cartoon series, Recess. All in all, it sounds like this TV Land adaptation has a much better shot at making it.