Cruel Intentions TV reboot changes a core choice of the 1999 film

When Cruel Intentions was released in Australia on April 1, 1999, almost every state and territory broke for the Easter school holidays the next day.

The movie had already been out in the US for a month, but here, it had been held back.

Was it timed to when teenagers would be off for two weeks, and could flock to see some of their favourite stars including Buffy’s Sarah Michelle Gellar and heartthrob Ryan Phillippe romp around moneyed Manhattan, bedding virgins and making bets about sex?

Oh, most definitely.

Except that it was classified MA15+, meaning anyone who was underage had to be accompanied by someone over 18 or, if you were enterprising, buy a ticket to something else and try to sneak into the right cinema during an era when ushers at each door were still common practice.

That was part of its illicit thrills. Like Lady Chatterley’s Lover being passed between women in secrecy, Cruel Intentions was watched in groups at the cinema or at sleepover parties, teen girls giggling at Phillippe’s bare buttocks during the pool scene or gasp at Joshua Jackson describing a lover as having “a mouth like a Hoover”.

Cruel Intentions is based on Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses set in a pre-revolutionary French court, detailing the exploits of the idle and cruel aristocracy intent on playing games with each other, and not caring which innocents were corrupted in the process.

The story had been adapted for the screen before, most notably in the 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons by Stephen Frears starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich, and also since, most recently in 2022 when it re-emerged with both TV and film versions.

But there was something extra irreverent about the 1999 movie. The choice to set it among high schoolers was bold. These characters had sex, blackmailed each other about sex, groomed other teens for sex and made bets about seducing virgins.

They wore long designer coats and corset tops, hid their cocaine in hollowed-out crucifix necklaces, and enticed each other with the promise that “you can put it anywhere”.

In a post-Lewinsky, pre-9/11 era, it was a time of youth culture dominance mixed in with the optimism of the upcoming millennium but that loosening of sexual mores was limited by the hangover of the conservatism of the 1980s. In the end, the anti-heroes, Kathryn (Gellar) and Sebastian (Phillippe), were still punished.

A year later, the producers tried to continue the naughty vibes with a TV show and even shot a pilot with a young Amy Adams taking over the Gellar role. The network baulked and said it was too raunchy for TV and the footage was re-edited to be a straight-to-DVD prequel movie.

If 24 years ago, it was considered too lascivious, what would a version of Cruel Intentions look like now after the likes of Outlander, Bridgerton, Euphoria and 50 Shades of Grey?

As it turns out, moral panic has swung back around. The 2024 iteration of Cruel Intentions isn’t set in high school. The title has been rebooted as an eight-episode streaming series (that’s so 2024), and this time, the characters have been aged up to university.

Co-creator of this version, Sara Goodman, told The Nightly that when it came to high schoolers getting into psychosexual games, “We live in a much more conservative world in that way right now, where people often have less of a sense of humour about it.”

When Goodman and Phoebe Fisher adapted it for streaming, they had wanted to keep it as “sexy” and “taboo” as the 1999 movie, and setting it at the university level allowed them to walk that line today.

Goodman added, “We wanted to keep the irreverence and sense of humour, and not lose any of those things that made it the favourite that you watch by yourself in your room. We want that and we don’t have it on television right now. It’s partly why we wanted to make the show.”

Fisher said the choice to age the characters up gave them different dynamics to play with because at that age, “you’re still young enough to be forgiven by bad behaviour but old enough to be bad”.

Changing the age range did open a new story possibility, which is to explore the secretive and exclusive world of American colleges’ sororities and fraternities, the campus clubs where members enjoy enormous privileges including life-long networking.

They have also been intensely criticised for elitism, exclusionary behaviours and even violent and destructive cultures especially around “pledging”, when wannabe-members are hazed in a series of rituals. Since 2000, more than 62 deaths have been linked to hazing.

In the Cruel Intentions series, the bet made between the two main characters, renamed Caroline (Sarah Catherine Hook) and Lucien (Zac Burgess), isn’t just for kicks or for Lucien to prove his sexual powers.

The seduction of Annie (Savannah Lee Smith) is designed to have her join the sorority and thereby securing its future because if Annie, the daughter of the US vice-president is a member, then the club can’t be shut down over a recent breach of rules.

“One of the first things that we decided on when we were developing it was setting it in this world of fraternities and sororities because it felt like a (different), rarefied world to peek behind the curtain of,” Fisher said.

“In Dangerous Liaisons, we had the royal court and then in Cruel Intentions (the movie), it was the Upper East Side. This felt like a fun new iteration for us to explore that would serve as a backdrop for our own characters to do their power plays and manipulations.”

Fisher argued that fraternities and sororities, with their rituals and traditions, have parallels to a royal court, like that in de Laclos’ book.

A month ago, the New York Times reported on a study from the University of California, Los Angeles which surveyed 1644 young Americans aged from 10 to 24 years old.

It found 63.5 per cent of them, up from 51.5 per cent the previous year, wanted TV shows and movies to tell stories about platonic friendships instead of romance and sex.

Goodman saw the same study and conceded there is a “different level of judgement and shame right now,” but that the way around it is with humour.

“People still want (sexiness), I refuse to believe that (people) don’t want longing and yearning and teasing and taboo. It’s fun,” she said. “If you take it too seriously, you can run into (that judgment).

“But we keep it irreverent and dastardly enough. It’s about power. It’s not just about sex, and hopefully everyone will like it, and if they pretend not to, that’s OK.”

Cruel Intentions is streaming on Prime Video from November 21