John Waters is Remaking His Obscene Classic ‘Pink Flamingos’ With a Cast of Kids

It’s been 10 years since cult film director John Waters released a new film, and although he isn’t currently working on a new original feature, 2015 will bring us a brand new film project from the beloved icon. As part of New York’s upcoming Waters exhibition titled “Beverly Hills John,” the director is assembling a cast of small children for a filmed table read of his trashy 1972 classic ‘Pink Flamingos.’ The project is called ‘Kiddie Flamingos,’ and we can’t wait to see the kid who plays the role originated by Divine.

‘Pink Flamingos’ was Waters’ second feature film following his 1969 debut, ‘Mondo Trasho.’ In the 1972 cult classic, Divine played the lead role, a notorious Baltimore criminal whose title as the “Filthiest Person Alive” is challenged by an unsavory married couple. The film famously featured a scene in which Divine ate real dog feces, and it remains one of the most delightfully sordid and wickedly funny films ever made.

If you haven’t seen Waters’ original film, it’s—as you might imagine—pretty obscene. But Waters is replacing the obscenities in his script and changing some of the plot particulars to be more kid-friendly. How so? In ‘Pink Flamingos,’ characters kidnap and impregnate hitchhikers so they can steal and sell their babies. ‘Kiddie Flamingos’ will instead have the children stealing talking dolls from affluent families. The kids will wear wigs and era-appropriate glasses, and one of them will even sport Waters’ trademark mustache.

In an interview with the New York Times, Waters explained how this new version is actually very much in keeping with the tone of ‘Pink Flamingos’:

I’ve always said that if you took out the sex and the violence, that it is a children’s story because it’s the battle of the gross-out, and that’s what most kids’ books are now

He really does have a point. Waters went on to express his hope that ‘Kiddie Flamingos’ will be “even more perverse than the original, because it’s transforming innocence into a whole new kind of joyous, G-rated obscenity.”

‘Kiddie Flamingos’ will be on display at the “Beverly Hills John” exhibit at the Marianna Boesky Gallery in Manhattan, New York from January 9 to February 14, 2015. The 74-minute film will play on an endless loop, so you’ll have a chance to see the entire thing more than once, if you like.