Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Entertainment
  3. News

Sarah Michelle Gellar will return for the Cruel Intentions TV series

Rick Marshall
By

sarah michelle gellar cruel intentions tv series
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar has been fairly selective about the projects she’s joined since Joss Whedon’s wildly popular series ended its seven-season run in 2003, but her next role will see her returning to another, familiar character from her past.

Geller announced this week that she’ll reprise her role from the 1999 movie Cruel Intentions for an upcoming television series based on the film. The original movie, which starred Gellar, Ryan Phillipe, Reese Witherspoon, and Selma Blair, cast the Buffy actress as a scheming prep school student who uses charm and seduction to manipulate the people around her.

Recommended Videos

The news of Gellar’s involvement came from the actress herself, who posted an image on Instagram featuring a photo of herself with Cruel Intentions director Roger Kumble and executive producer Neal Moritz during production of the original movie, juxtaposed with a recent photo of all three together again.

Related

“That’s right ‘everybody loves me, and I intend to keep it that way’ #kathrynmerteuil is back!!! I am happy to say that I will be joining them (and @nbctv ) on the new #Crueltv,” wrote Gellar in the caption for the photo.


According to Deadline, the Cruel Intentions television series will be set 15 years after the events of the 1999 movie, and will pick up with Kathryn Merteuil (Gellar) vying for control of her wealthy family’s company. American Crime actor Taylor John Smith will play Bash Casey, the son of Kathryn’s late stepbrother, Sebastian Valmont (Phillippe), and Annette Hargrove (Witherspoon).

The series will reportedly follow Kathryn as she continues to manipulate her way to power, as well as Bash’s introduction to the world of sex, money, and power that his father was immersed in prior to meeting his mother and the events of the original movie.

Kumble, who wrote and directed the 1999 movie and its direct-to-video 2000 prequel, Cruel Intentions 2, co-wrote the pilot for the series and will direct it. He penned the script for the pilot with Lindsey Rosin and Jordan Ross, the writers responsible for the stage show Cruel Intentions: The Unauthorized Musical Parody.

There’s no word on when the Cruel Intentions television series will premiere on NBC at this point.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Rick Marshall
Rick Marshall
Former Digital Trends Contributor
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
Surface’s Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Oliver Jackson-Cohen on their Apple TV+ series
Sophie and James stand next to each other in evening wear in a scene from Surface.

What if you woke up one morning and had forgotten everything about your past? Could you trust your significant other, friends, and family to fill you in on your missing memories? That's the situation presented in Surface, Veronica West's new psychological thriller series from Apple TV+. Gugu Mbatha-Raw stars as Sophie, a woman who survives a suicide attempt in which she jumps off a ferry in the San Francisco Bay. The tragic incident causes severe memory loss so it's up to her husband James, played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen, and friends to fill her in on the details of her past life.

Sophie appears to have a picture-perfect life that includes a wonderful job, a loving husband, and a beautiful home. However, Sophie begins to question why she decided to end her life if it was so picturesque to begin with. Through her interactions with Baden, played by Stephan James, Sophie soon uncovers the truth about her past. In an interview with Digital Trends, Mbatha-Raw and Jackson-Cohen discuss the appeal of psychological thrillers like Surface and the dilemma of playing secretive characters.

Read more
Harrison Ford will star in AppleTV+’s Shrinking series
Future co-stars Harrison Ford and Jason Segel.

For over four decades, Harrison Ford has been such an accomplished movie star that doing television for anything more than a guest appearance would be beneath him. However, the streaming era of Peak TV has changed the television landscape, and now Ford is ready to co-headline his own comedy series.

Via Deadline, Ford is slated to star in Shrinking, a new Apple TV+ original comedy opposite Jason Segel. From the description provided by Apple TV+, Segel's role is the main character. He is described as a grieving therapist who starts to "break the rules and tell his clients exactly what he thinks. Ignoring his training and ethics, he finds himself making huge, tumultuous changes to people’s lives…including his own."

Read more
Shang-Chi director to return for sequel and new Disney+ series
The cast of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Earlier this year, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings proved to be a box office superhero by bringing fans back to theaters at a crucial time and raking in more than $432-million worldwide to date. Now, Marvel is officially moving forward with a sequel to Shang-Chi.

Deadline is reporting that director Destin Daniel Cretton has signed a multiyear overall deal with Disney and Hulu’s Onyx Collective that includes both Shang-Chi 2 and a new Marvel Studios series on Disney+. Cretton is also launching his own production company, Family Owned, which will "focus on building a slate of projects in film and TV that highlight the experiences of communities that have traditionally been overlooked by pop culture."

Read more