As many have noted recently, including ourselves, Winona Ryder has been pretty much desperate to get “Heathers 2” made and has been bugging original writer Dan Waters and director Michael Lehman to get a sequel going for year. Both filmmakers have been putting her off for years too, with, “uhhh, yeah, totally” tranquilizing non-answers. As /Film aptly puts it, “While [they haven’t quite] called her crazy, [they’ve] sent out the message… this sequel is probably never going to happen.”
Which is completely the case, but Ryder obviously persists. And recently came out and said the sequel was definitely happening. It’s possible, but doubtful his position has changed, but last year, in a Creative Screenwriting podcast Waters basically laughed off the idea of “Heathers 2,” suggested it was something that Ryder is always on about and generates ideas so he can placate her — possibly so she’ll star in other films of his like, “Sex And Death 101” from 2007.
Asked about “Heathers 2,” Waters’ initial response was. “Oh brother…It’s the only way I can get Winona Ryder to pick up the phone.”
Q: is that how you got her to star in “Sex and Death 101”?
“It’s just always the elephant in the room. “Like (mimics manipulative voice) ‘Well, if you wanna do the ‘Heathers 2 sequel’…’ Yeah, I’ve had a bunch of crappy sequel ideas. One of them was where she went to Washington and worked with a senator to be played by Meryl Streep and ends up assassinating the president and makes it look like a suicide, but I throw these cockamamie things out there and she’ll come up to me at parties and say, ‘I’ve talked to Meryl, she’s in’ and like ‘what?? You told Meryl Streep that horrible [idea]?’ She’ll be like, ‘No, she likes it, she has a couple notes,’ [copious laughter] but I never follow-up. But now I do have this crazy thing just to placate her — though it’s not really gonna happen though people; we’re even 10 years past ‘Two Jakes’ at this point — that I like the idea of doing a parody of those crappy ‘Dangerous Minds’ movie where the ‘cool’ teacher comes in and I like the idea of her coming in as a teacher and trying to cure all the high school proms and ends up trying to engineer a massacre, but its not as funny anymore! Massacres aren’t…Columbine took away all the laughs.”
Yes, that response is a year old, do you think anything has changed? Somehow, we sincerely doubt it (though watch someone go, “Dan Waters Wants To Parody Dangerous Minds For Heathers 2!”)
I somewhat resent your characterisation of Winona Ryder as some nutjob crank, based solely on a few throwaway lines in a wide-ranging article. Yeah, the sequel's never going to happen. Everyone knows that. Not particularly earth-shattering. She moonlights as a shoplifter in her spare time too – were you aware?
Not a nutjob, but moonlights as a shoplifter even though she's essentially rich, gotcha.
Hey, some people just get grabby.
I can't say I wouldn't get grabby around Ms. Ryder.