Welcome To The Dollhouse follow-up begins filming with Greta Gerwig as Dawn Weiner

In the kind of hard continuity reboot usually only seen in comic books, Todd Solondz appears to be rewriting the story of Dawn Weiner for a new movie, Weiner-Dog. The pseudo-sequel, which Variety refers to as a “follow-up,” began filming in New York City this week, with indie darlings Greta Gerwig and Julie Delpy leading a cast that also includes Kieran Culkin, Danny DeVito, Brie Larson, Ellen Burstyn, Zosia Mamet, and Tracy Letts.

Gerwig is reportedly taking over the role of Dawn, who was played by Heather Matarazzo in Solondz’s 1996 film Welcome To The Dollhouse; Solondz killed off Weiner at the beginning of his 2004 film Palindromes, staging a funeral for her after she’d “gone off to college, gotten fat, become pregnant, and committed suicide.” So maybe this whole thing with Greta Gerwig is Dawn’s dying hallucination of her dream life as a sophisticated urbanite, or maybe she faked her own death and ran off to New York, or maybe Solondz just doesn’t really care. Regardless, Weiner’s story will be just one of multiple segments in the film, centered on a seemingly magical dachshund that traverses the city “spreading comfort and joy.”