The Clueless sequel series that was in development has been killed, and thank god for that

Oh, as if! As if indeed.

The Clueless sequel series that was in development has been killed, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

US streaming platform Peacock has canned any more work on it, so a return to the mansions and malls of Beverly Hills just wasn’t meant to be.

The project was announced this time last year as a potential TV show follow-up, and the big splashy centrepiece was that OG Cher Horowitz, Alicia Silverstone, was on board to reprise the role and as an executive producer.

Amy Heckerling, who wrote and directed the iconic 1995 film wouldn’t have been hands-on, but also had an EP credit. The series was to be overseen by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, who are known for teen shows The OC, Gossip Girl and Nancy Drew.

There were no further details including whether they would be able to lure back any more of its original cast (Paul Rudd, Stacey Dash, Donald Faison Jr, Breckin Meyer, Jeremy Sisto and Elisa Donovan).

Now, it would be boring to just rail against any and all remakes, reboots, revivals and sequels – that’s real “old man yelling at clouds” territory. Those projects are just part of the Hollywood ecosystem now and there’s no changing it, not for a while anyway.

Plus, some of those projects have real value. Often, filmmakers come along with a fresh take or a very tangible love for something they grew up with, and they’re able to craft something that respects the legacy of the source material and be in conversation with a contemporary milieu.

Take the 2000s-era Battlestar Galactical reboot or David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return. Amazing.

Even when they’re bad or pointless, well, you don’t have to engage with it anyway, right? Most Arrested Development fans don’t treat the derided fourth and fifth seasons as canonical, you just kind of pretend they don’t exist.

Clueless even had a sequel series which followed soon after in the 1990s, with Canadian actor Rachel Blanchard in the role, but it’s been largely forgotten and, again, not really official canon.

Remakes and sequels don’t have to tarnish your relationship with the original, if it does, it’s because you let it.

The 1995 Clueless film, a perfect piece of cinema, would have easily survived any follow-up, good or otherwise, but this was one story that felt particularly unsuited to a modern sequel.

Clueless was extremely of its moment, and that’s not a bad thing. It not only perfectly captured pop culture and a specific slice of American teenhood of the mid-1990s, but it was highly influential on both.

The film’s playful fashions and distinctive vernacular permeated across the world, so that Australian kids, 12,000kms away from Los Angeles, were peppering their sentences with “whatever” and “buggin’”.

That influence over the culture, rather than merely reflecting the culture is why it’s so hard to separate Clueless from its original era.

Cher Horowitz will always be a 90s Beverly Hills teenager who was more concerned about hats than placing Bosnia in Europe and not the Middle East. That was her charm, that she could be really into superficial stuff and also be a really good person with the capacity for growth.

Being able to change was part of the core of that character, but we don’t really want to see what changes 30 years of living have wrought.

Do you really want to know what Cher, as a 40-something woman, is up to? There will be no satisfying scenario. Whether she’s a philanthropist who has expanded her horizons beyond the Pismo Beach disaster or a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills, it would be a letdown.

That character is an icon of optimism and hope, and no wants to be confronted with what happens to that spirit in middle age. And if she remained in some Pollyanna bubble, that lack of awareness would also grate.

In the same way that Ferris Bueller will forever be that cheeky kid on the float in Chicago or that Kevin McCallister never grew up, neither should Cher Horowitz.