As a child of the 80s and younger brother to a hairspray queen, there was little I could do to escape repeat viewings of the Shelly Long comedy TROOP BEVERLY HILLS. Which is kind of funny to me, seeing as my sister has never camped a day in her life, or earned a merit badge for good deeds done. Nevertheless, she loved this movie, and so I can't wait to tell her that Tri-Star is currently developing a sequel to the original film with AFI Conservatory grad Oran Zegman in line to make her directorial debut.
Based on the life events of Ava Fries, TROOP BEVERLY HILLS (1989) is a fancy fish-out-of-water tale that tells of a soon to be divorced Beverly Hills socialite (Helly Long) who is determined to prove to her husband and herself that she can finish what she starts out to do, by becoming a den mother to a troop of Beverly Hills Girl Scouts. If you please, think of it like Daniel Stern's BUSHWACKED meets CLUELESS. That's right, I said BUSHWACKED. Remember that embarrassing gem?
Oscar-nominated Laurence Mark (The Greatest Showman, Julie & Julia, Dreamgirls, Jerry Maguire) will produce the feature from a screenplay by Aeysha Carr with a rewrite by Tamara Chestna, who will also share in producing the project. As for Zegman, she's an up-and-coming filmmaker who graduated with a Performing Arts degree from Beth-Zvi in Israel and then went on to receive her masters at the AFI Conservatory. Her short film, Marriage Material, went on to become the first musical made at AFI. The aforementioned project was recently picked up by Searchlight and is set to be adapted into a Quibi show with Chernin and Endeavor Content. Zegman will co-write the series in addition to serving as the project's director.
Alright, I think it's time for me to go and make that phone call. I suspect that my sister will be very excited by this news, and after her first week back to school, in Florida of all places, I'm sure she could use the pick-me-up. Cheers, folks, and enjoy your weekend!