‘Clueless’ spinoff television series scrapped

A Clueless spinoff television series that had been in development at Peacock has been scrapped.

The provisional show was set to see Alicia Silverstone reprise her lead role of Cher Horowitz from the beloved 1995 high school movie, with the show picking up her story years after the climax of the film.

It was first announced in April last year, but Variety have now reported that Peacock are no longer moving forward with the production. The project may still be revived, however, with other studios including Paramount and CDS Studios thought to be interested in picking it up.

The original writer and director Amy Heckerling had been down to executive produce the series, as was Silverstone, while Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage and Jordan Weiss were attached as writers.

Clueless was loosely based on Jane Austen’s novel Emma, and it followed wealthy, fashion-forward Beverly Hills high school student Cher, a matchmaker and social fixer. When she takes on a new student, Brittany Murphy’s Tai, as a project, her meddling starts to undermine her assumptions about friendship and identity.

In 2019, an entirely separate Clueless spinoff series from Paramount Studios entered production but was never completed. That was intended to focus on Stacey Dash’s character Dionne ‘Dee’ Davenport.

Speaking back in 2015 about why the film has remained so popular over the years, Paul Rudd told NME: “I think it’s a clever movie and it’s well made – Amy Heckerling did a great job with it.

“The fact that it’s [based on] Emma means the actual story is something that’s held up over the years. But Alicia Silverstone is so winning in that part too.”

In 2021, Silverstone celebrated the 25th anniversary of the film by recreating an iconic scene from the movie in a TikTok video.