On Wednesday, TV screens will become a little more pink as “Legally Blonde” prequel series “Elle” debuts on Prime Video — reopening the door on the beloved franchise, whose first film grossed $142 million from $18 million budget in 2001, as Elle Woods heads to high school.
The series, which sits comfortably on the streamer’s growing YA slate and had its star Lexi Minetree at this weekend’s Obsessed Fest, was derived from resident Elle Woods expert Reese Witherspoon herself, who has built an impressive lineup of female-centered movies and shows via Hello Sunshine, which she founded in 2016.
“We were looking at what was happening on social media and feeling like there was a lot of negative messaging for the next generation of young women … She really felt like the world could use Elle Woods,” Hello Sunshine president of film and TV Lauren Neustadter told TheWrap. “There was a real opportunity to bring Elle Woods to this next generation and remind them of all of the things she messaged to us, which is ‘Be yourself, believe in yourself, you’re capable of anything, don’t sell yourself short.’ “
Heading to high school
With the “Legally Blonde” sequels following Elle through her legal career after law school, Witherspoon had the idea for a prequel series following Elle in high school — especially with the success of “Wednesday” on Netflix, a franchise expansion of “The Addams Family.” Neustadter said the team paid close attention to “laddering up toward the movie and … what made her the woman that she is when we meet her in the original film” as they plotted the new show.
Neustadter and Witherspoon enlisted Laura Kittrell (“Insecure,” “High School”) to craft her take on the prequel. She previously developed a pilot for Hello Sunshine based on her teenage years in Meridian, Mississippi, that Neustadter described as both “laugh out loud funny” as well as “deeply emotional.”
As Kittrell crafted her take on “Elle,” she knew she wanted to embrace the “fish out of water” element that fans of the original loved while not feeling repetitive — “If we just do her in Bel-Air it’s ‘Clueless,” and that already exists.” It’s how she landed on 1995 Seattle as the setting for Elle’s transformation, prompted by a career move for her father (Tom Everett Scott) that takes their family out of Bel-Air and forcing Elle to deal with grunge attitudes and cynical mindsets from her rose-colored glasses.
“We get to see her struggling to find herself … and peel back the layers to see what made her who she is,” Neustadter said. “She’s so confident, she’s so self-assured, she could not always have been.”
Kittrell’s script was turned in by Hello Sunshine to Amazon on May 3, 2024 and 11 days later, the series order was announced at Amazon’s inaugural upfront presentation.
Embracing YA
Alongside the series green light came a directive from Prime Video for “Elle” to fit in with its other hourlong YA series, prompting Hello Sunshine to bring in Caroline Dries (“The Vampire Dairies”) as a co-showrunner alongside Kittrell. “We knew that Laura was going to crush it, but … because we were making an hourlong show, we wanted to bring in somebody who had real expertise and experience in YA drama,” Neustadter said.
“There was this false narrative that Laura and I fell into, where it’s like Laura writes comedy and Caroline writes teen drama, and they’ll stay in their lane and work together to make the show go forever and be hilarious,” Dries said. “It turns out that we’re both good at both things, which I think just made our partnership flourish.”
As they began writing the series together, Kittrell and Dries aimed to balance the film franchise’s comedic tone with the requested teen drama flare, including some mother-daughter conflict between Elle and her mom (played by June Diane Raphael), frenemies and, of course a love triangle.
“It was a little bit of inventing a tone, but we feel like we fit the sweet spot with it,” Kittrell said.
That tone was also honed by the show’s directors, including “Pitch Perfect” director Jason Moore, whose guiding principle was to portray Elle and her world as larger than life. “Elle’s world is a kind of magical heightened world … she dresses like no one else, she speaks like no one else, she has a flare like no one else, and she really fills a room with this sense of optimism,” Moore said.
But Moore didn’t officially sign on to “Elle” until they found the right actress to do her justice.
Finding the next Elle
The choice to host an open casting call came from Witherspoon herself, with Neustadter recalling, “She said that the Elle Woods thing to do is open it up and give everybody a shot.”
The open casting call yielded “close to 5,000 tapes,” according to Neustadter, but Minetree’s stood out right away, especially after casting director David Rubin told them to pay special attention to hers.
Minetree’s shot-for-shot recreation of Elle Woods’ Harvard application video from “Legally Blonde” immediately impressed Moore, not only from a filmmaking perspective but how she embodied Elle’s persona. “Even though that could be cringe in some other ways, you believed her because Lexi also possesses this sense of optimism and hope,” he said.
She also passed the test of the co-showrunners, who noted they wrote “really tricky” sides for Lexi and the other actors, knowing those cast were “going to have mouthfuls of dialogue every single day” embodying the quick cadence of the movie. “She just crushed it … we put her through the gauntlet, and she passed,” Dries said.
“What I love about Lexi that was true in that very first audition, and that is really true in the show is she never mimics Reese — she channels her,” Neustadter said. “She understands the character, she embodies her really beautifully, but you never feel like she’s trying to imitate her … it just flows through her.”
And while Moore was excited to capture Elle’s larger-than-life persona, Minetree’s performance made him confident fans would see “Elle Woods is in a t-shirt at home, watching ‘Days of Our Lives’ under the covers” as well. “Lexi was really able to find this grounded emotional side, which is frankly the thing that makes the show tick,” Moore said.
Staying true to the fans
While Moore noted Minetree had already been studying Witherspoon’s performance, he brought in a vocal coach from his Broadway days to help hone the new Elle’s vocal intonations match Witherspoon’s from the original movie.
Honoring the beloved movie was top of mind for the team — resulting in some Easter eggs throughout the season — but Kitrell noted those were never fan service for fan service’s sake.
“You’re basically trying to win them over with the same character that won people over before … you’re trying to make it feel like it’s on its own terms,” Moore said. “I think actually setting it in the past is part of the bridge to do that also … like, ‘Oh, this is something that’s from a time that I’m less familiar with and I’m willing to go on the ride,’ and then … with a more YA approach, which is you make it relatable to 16-year-olds or people who were recently 16 and still traumatized by it.”
Making that intergenerational link of both the parents who saw “Legally Blonde” in theaters and their kids who are now in high school was key for the team, with Moore noting it’s why the show leaned so much into the mother-daughter dynamics between Elle and her mother.
Cementing a new legacy
“Elle” was renewed for Season 2 in January and filming on that wrapped even before the show’s premiere on Wednesday. But the team has set their sights well beyond that.
“Laura was very specific when she created the show and put Elle as beginning her junior year, and we sat in the writers’ room on the first day and told everyone, ‘Look, we’re only going to get midway through junior year because how great would it be just to stretch this out as long as possible,’” Dries said. Kitrell added, “We intentionally have a very slow timeline on our show, so we’re hoping that Amazon will just let us keep slowing it down [and] drag it out for as long as we can.”
With that cadence, the end of senior year would align with Season 4, but even Neustadter pointed out we haven’t yet seen Elle’s college years.
“Summer school, driver’s ed could be a full season if we really worked on it,” Dries joked. “The cast all keep saying summer season.”
“Elle” Season 1 is now streaming on Prime Video.
