It makes perfect sense that, in this world dominated by Scandal, NBC would be interested in a series adaptation of the 1999 melodrama classic Cruel Intentions. It doesn’t make as much sense that Sarah Michelle Gellar would reprise her role as Kathryn Merteuil, but it’s happening anyway.
The news, which comes via Gellar’s Instagram account (where else? it’s 2016), posits that she would appear in the pilot and that she may very well be a regular should the show get ordered for a full season.
NBC’s series is an adaption and successor to the original, taking place roughly 15 years after the conclusion of the film. The show finds Merteuil as an executive trying to take control of Valmont International while seducing Bash Casey (Taylor John Smith), the son of her deceased brother Sebastian Valmont (who was played perfectly by Ryan Phillippe in the film). Bash apparently discovers the journals of his deceased father and uses them as a gateway into a seedy world of drugs, sex, and violence, so the show at least seems to be headed down the right direction.
The TV adaptation is being written by the same people who wrote and directed a recent musical parody that was staged in L.A., Lindsey Rosin and Jordan Ross, along with the film’s writer-director Roger Kumble and producer Neal Moritz.
Here’s hoping this pilot gets picked up for a full season.