Much like Ryan Phillippe’s character in the end of the hit film Cruel Intentions, the troubled Cruel Intentions TV reboot has been metaphorically hit by a cab while pushing Reese Witherspoon out of oncoming traffic. In other words, it’s now totally and officially dead. The show was originally being developed at NBC, but it suddenly dropped the “younger-skewing soapy drama” in October after realizing that it didn’t fit with any of the other shows at the network. Sony Pictures Television was producing the pilot, and “multiple networks” were supposedly interested in picking it up after NBC passed, but now Deadline says the actors’ contracts—including Sarah Michelle Gellar, who would’ve returned to play the manipulative Kathryn Merteuil—are set to expire next week and won’t be renewed.
Sony still believes that some kind of Cruel Intentions TV show will happen, as there’s apparently “some interest in a new take on the premise,” but this version isn’t moving forward anywhere. The plan was for it to be a sequel to the original movie, with Gellar’s character trying to manipulate the teenage son of Phillippe’s character into becoming an evil and rich jerk like she is. Whatever “new take” someone else might have, it apparently won’t be that.