The Frisky
There’s Going To Be A ”˜First Wives Club’ Reboot & It’s Probably Going To Be Terrible
Karen Fratti | June 5, 2016 – 5:21 pm
If there’s a really great way to feel kind of old, it’s when movies you remember from being a kid get remade. It’s happening (and if you weren’t a conscious human being in 1996, good for you, now go away before we suck the youth from your soul) now: there is going to be a The First Wive’s Club reboot starring Alyson Hannigan, of How I Met Your Mother and Buffy (See? Old.) fame, and Megan Hilty from Smash. They’re still looking for a third wife to join the crew. It’s not going to be a remake of the 1996 film starring Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, and Bette Midler, however (booooo but also yaaaay for knowing not to fuck with perfection). Instead, it’s going to be a comedy on TV Land set in modern day San Francisco, where the three friends “band together,” according to New York Magazine’s Vulture, to deal with love and life and all that other good stuff.
It sounds like it could be worth binge watching on a rainy day. But it does make me nostalgic for the good ol’ days, everyone. The First Wive’s Club is one of those films that makes you go, “they just don’t make shit like this anymore.” It’s one of those movies that’s not a drama or a rom-com or anything else. It’s a nineties movie. This was back when you could cast Sarah Jessica Parker as a foil to the master plan and not a fashionista. There was singing and dancing and stiff drinks and plastic surgery and, I mean, it starred Bette freaking Midler. And not ironically.
The First Wives Club would never be made today, in no small part because Ivana Trump wouldn’t be in it. I mean come on, it starts with a woman, played by Stockard Channing, just throwing herself off of a balcony, drink and cigarette in hand, because her husband cheated on her. No one learns anything at the end or is like, actually empowered. The women are openly eating and drinking (and singing and dancing) their way through their feelings and the misandry is real. I don’t think there is one person of color. So, on most levels, it’s great that we don’t make movies like this anymore. But I still sort of miss them.
That being said, I am not going to write this reboot off just yet. TV Land has actually done some pretty decent things recently (This opinion, too, probably makes me old.). Hot in Cleveland is not so bad and Darren Starr’s (Melrose! 90210!) Younger with Hillary Duff and Debi Mazar is stupid, yes, but totally binge worthy and adorable. In fact, it is very much like a ’90s movie – the premise is absurd, the women have to “remake” themselves, and the New York City exteriors are cheesy as hell (think walks in Central Park and crowded, bustling, restaurants You’ve Got Mail-style).
And yes, I do watch TV Land and I am not ashamed.
If anyone is going to reboot and remold The First Wives Club – which was also a book written by Olivia Goldsmith in 1992, so there’s material to work with – let it be TV Land. Just make the third wife not-white and get Megan Hilty a girlfriend, please. It’s not the freaking ’90s anymore.
