Cruel Intentions

Cruel Intentions was so much more than the movie where Sarah Michelle Gellar kissed Selma Blair. (And yet, at the same time, it was and is very much that.) A retelling of Les Liaisons dangereuses set among hot, rich teens in New York, it brought a welcome dose of luridness and eroticism to neighborhood cineplexes in addition to scoring many a makeout sesh between randy adolescents during the late ’90s. Both campy and soapy, the yarn of seduction and betrayal has remained a roaring good time even as it’s turned into a time capsule of its era and all the attendant, difficult-to-look-at fashions. But a good time is all it’s going to be, as recent news indicates.

It’s one thing for TV to mine intellectual property for a new series, and another to actually recruit stars of the original production to continue the story. Cruel Intentions apparently couldn’t hack it with Sarah Michelle Gellar, however, as NBC has officially opted to pass on its sequel series adaptation.

Earlier this month, NBC placed an order for a Cruel Intentions TV pilot that would act as a sort of sequel to the 1999 film, and today brings the fortuitous news that the central pillar of this grand monument to teen horniness will return for the second go-round. Now comes word that original star Sarah Michelle Gellar will reprise her role as Kathryn Merteuil, the queen-bitch rich kid meddling in everyone’s affairs with her sexual scheming.

We are in a strange era of television with networks reviving beloved shows like The X-Files and, uh, Full House, and developing sequel TV shows for the kind of movies you never really thought needed a sequel — like Training Day and Limitless (though the latter seems to be doing okay). The latest movie to get its own baffling TV follow-up is Cruel Intentions, the 1999 thriller that weirdly spawned a few direct-to-video sequels already.