‘He’s All That’ Brought Some of the Original Team Back for the Netflix Remake
He’s All That is an upcoming film that will be appearing on Netflix on August 27th, 2021. The movie is a gender-swap remake of the movie She’s All That from 1999. A few of the original creators have returned to help with the remake including the screenwriter and original producers.
Despite a few of the original actors returning to play different characters, Freddie Prinze Jr., who played the lead character Zack Siler, is not going to appear in the new movie. Here’s the rundown on how the new show will differ and borrow from the original.
The original movie She’s All That
She’s All That tells the story of a popular jock who wagers his friends that he can transform an introverted geek into the prom queen in six weeks. The unlikely pair are at odds at first but eventually fall in love with each other. She’s All That’s box office success also featured its main theme song — Kiss Me by Sixpence None The Richer — into mainstream pop.
The movie was added to the ’90s canon of teen romance flicks and has been the inspiration for many other teen romance movies since its debut in 1999. The message of the original film was basically don’t judge a book by its cover, or indeed, a person by their social status. This idea rings true no matter what decade and the remake will certainly address this.
The remake He’s All That
The upcoming He’s All That will follow roughly the same storyline, except the leading roles will be played by actors of the opposite gender. According to Netflix, “the contemporary story will follow an influencer who accepts a challenge to turn the school’s biggest loser into prom king.”
With the invention of social media, the rules of high school popularity have certainly changed. Teenagers today revolve more around social media status as opposed to who has the most friends in real life, and this new film certainly reflects the differences in generations. In fact, one of the stars of the movie is a social media influencer in real life.
The differences between the two movies
Tik Tok star and influencer Addison Rae and Cobra Kai’s Tanner Buchanan are set to star in the updated teen romance movie. This will be Rae’s movie performance debut. Since she has no acting experience, it will be interesting to see how she does.
Rae is currently the highest-paid creator on the app, earning an estimated $5 million from June 2019 to 2020, which makes her a perfect fit for the premise of the new movie given her social media status.
Aside from the gender-swapping of the main characters and the platform used for teen popularity, another interesting change is that the story will be told from a teenage girl’s point of view. This contemporary reimagining of the 90’s classic is sure to hit on some modern-day trends as the premise is that a social media influencer takes on the challenge of turning a nerdy guy into the prom king.
He’s All That is sure to not only be an entertaining and fresh look at the old classic, but it also promises to be imbued with a few of the original ideas that made She’s All That such a classic and memorable teen romance film. The advent of social media has certainly transformed the way that we interact with each other.
And with this new spin on an old classic, perhaps we can take some lessons about how it is changing the way we grow and the way that we communicate, and the assets and detriments of these changes.
