Good news for anyone who loves nun-based musical comedy, but can’t wait for their local community theater to stop screwing around and do Nunsense again: Sister Act is coming back to theaters. Disney is reviving its potent cocktail of nuns, mobsters, and soul hits for another outing, with Cinderella producer Allison Shearmur running the show. The 1992 original was a huge hit for the company through its Touchstone Pictures banner, earning $200 million at the box office and finally dispelling long-held misconceptions about whether nuns could or could not “really rock out” if you just gave them half a chance.
Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah, the writing team behind Legally Blonde and 10 Things I Hate About You, have been tapped to write the film. The Hollywood Reporter notes that Smith and McCullah are “two of the most reliable writers in the female protagonist comedy space,” fully licensed to process and handle female comedy protagonists, and all their dangerous, female comedy byproducts. The pair also wrote 2009’s The Ugly Truth, though, so fans of the Sister Act franchise might want to prepare themselves for scenes of uncomfortable nuns being vibrated by remote control habits, at the mercy of their mischievous, sexually playful husband, God.
No word yet on whether series star Whoopi Goldberg is in talks to return for a third film, as she’s pretty busy these days with her new cop show, not to mention presiding over the writhing, five-headed hydra of mid-morning blather known as The View. Meanwhile, former Reverend Mother Maggie Smith has a full schedule on her plate, too, what with toying with the marketing staff of Downton Abbey, disapproving of things, and taking 10 house points away from anything and everything that annoys her.