Clueless Reboot - Details We Know So Far

Who didn't want to be Cher Horowitz growing up? She was the Queen of All Things High School. She was gorgeous. She knew how to lawyer her way out of a bad grade (although she didn't have much success with the DMV... "Oops, my bad!"). She was a social activist ("It does not say R.S.V.P. on the Statue of Liberty!"); a trendsetter ("This is an Alaia... It's like a totally important designer."); and Every Girl's Friend — and by that we mean "she's my friend because we both know what it's like for people to be jealous of us."

Cher made Clueless iconic. So iconic, in fact, that the movie was adapted for the small screen in 1996, with most of the cast returning, save for Alicia Silverstone who had other obligations (she was replaced by Rachel Blanchard). But if the movie and the TV show weren't enough to quench your Clueless thirst, you'll be happy to hear that Deadline reports things are moving in the direction of a Clueless reboot, which will be produced by American Gothic's Corinne Brinkerhoff through CBS TV Studios.

Think all of the teen angst and none of the sunshine and fun that made Clueless such a joy to watch (over and over again). Deadline, which first reported the made-for-tv reboot, says the series will focus on Dionne Davenport (who was originally played by Stacey Dash) and has characterized it as a "baby pink and bisexual blue-tinted, tiny sunglasses-wearing, oat milk latte, and Adderall-fueled look at what happens when the high school queen bee Cher disappears and her lifelong No. 2 Dionne steps into Cher's vacant Air Jordans." (Wait a minute... the original Cher never wore Air Jordans! Ugh, as IF!)

Dionne is set to become the new Teen Queen of High School and is having to deal with the pressure, not just of being the new popular girl at school, but she's also trying to find the mystery of what happened to her best friend. Entertainment Weekly has said the reboot would fall "somewhere around the intersection of Mean Girls, Riverdale, and a Lizzo music video." 

Big name stars lined up to audition when Amy Heckerling casted the original Clueless in the early 1990s. Mental Floss lists Reese Witherspoon, Zooey Deschanel (who also tried out for Amber) and Sarah Michelle Gellar as having wanted to play Cher. The site also names Jeremy Renner (who tried out for Josh); Terrence Howard and Lauryn Hill (for Murray and Dionne, respectively); Owen Wilson (for Travis); and Leah Rimini (for Tai).

Given the Internet's lukewarm response (think buggin') to the reboot news thus far, it will be difficult to imagine any one of those names putting their hat in the ring today. Will Paul Rudd come back? Reprising his role as Josh wouldn't really be a problem... its not like he's changed or anything. Since the new writers appear to have written Cher out of the show, its not clear which of the characters might survive a creative cull, or indeed which of the actors who appeared in both Clueless the movie and Clueless the TV series might even return in a different incarnation: Amber Mariens, the in-crowd popular girl played by Elisa Donovan; Christian Stovitz, Cher's early love interest, played by Justin Walker; Elton who was played by Jeremy Sisto; and Travis Birkenstock, the skateboarded/stoner who became Tai's eventual boyfriend played by Breckin Meyer. 

One person we're not likely to see in any form is Stacey Dash who played Dionne both in the movie and the spin-off TV show. The actress turned political activist was arrested in September 2019 for apparent domestic violence, and it seems likely the network might distance themselves from that. Brittany Murphy, who played Tai, tragically passed away in 2009 at just 32 years of age.

No guesses here... Deadline says the show will take place in a setting that is "uniquely 2020 LA" which will set the Clueless reboot in the present. The show will be written by Jordan Reddout and Gus Hickey of Will and Grace fame, and given the massive changes made to Clueless' original storyline, we're probably going to have few to none of the threads that made the original movie a retelling of Jane Austin's Emma. 

But... since the story is set in the present, does this mean there is a chance we could see Rudd and Silverstone together in cameos as an alternate time version of Josh and Cher as parents whose offspring are at Bronson Alcott High School? We can only hope.

We know that producers have pinpointed the show's setting as a backdrop that is uniquely 2020 Los Angeles, but even if it already has a production team in producer Corinne Brinkerhoff (creator of American Gothic and No Tomorrow) and development executive Tiffany Grant, as well as writers (Reddout and Hickney of Will and Grace), the show has not yet been casted, and it has not yet been picked up by a network. 

This means we can't realistically expect the show to hit the small screen until at least the fall television season — or around September 2020. To fill the void, we may just have to keep rewatching the movie because we loved it then, and we still love it now.

Because the show is likely still in the development stage and we're still in the dark about a few important details, we're not likely to see any video clips or graphics, let alone trailers for some time to come. Entertainment Weekly reports that CBS TV is currently "out to market" with the series and that it has attracted multiple bidders. CBS is one of the CW's main program suppliers, so Clueless could be heading there (via Deadline). 

As soon as Clueless finds a home, you can bet we'll be offering you a glimpse of this latest attempt to remake a '90s favorite (which we honestly thought was so good it should be considered a classic) into something for the 2020 audience can appreciate.