The ’10 Things I Hate About You’ Sequel Fell Apart — and Evan Rachel Wood Got Sued Because of It
On March 31, 1999, 10 Things I Hate About You debuted. The movie — featuring stars like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Julia Stiles, and Gabrielle Union — became an instant blockbuster. Based on The Taming of the Shrew, one of Shakespeare’s most famous comedy plays, the popular film quickly grew a large fan base. Many were hoping to get a sequel to the romantic comedy — and they almost did. However, the sequel swiftly fell apart, and Evan Rachel Wood was at the center of it all.
’10 Things I Hate About You’ almost had a sequel
Fans and viewers fell in love with Bianca Stratford and her big sis Kat. In 10 Things I Hate About You, Cameron, played by Gordon-Levitt, desperately wanted to date Bianca, portrayed by Larisa Oleynik. As audiences remember well, until Kat started dating, Bianca still was not allowed. Naturally, Cameron, with the help of his rebellious bad-boy friend, thought he had the perfect solution to that.
The film followed two sisters, Kat and Bianca, played by Stiles and Larisa Oleynik. Gordon-Levitt’s character, Cameron, will do anything to date Bianca — even hire Heath Ledger’s bad boy Patrick to take out Kat. The movie performed well at the box office, and remains popular more than 20 years later.
Naturally, this garnered a sequel. 10 Things I Hate About Life was cast and had even begun filming. Though it didn’t feature any of the original cast, prominent actors like Wood and a pre-Marvel Hayley Atwell were attached. Filming began in 2012. But just a month into production, it stopped.
A closer look into why the sequel to ’10 Things I Hate About You’ fell apart
So what happened to 10 Things I Hate About Life?
As BuzzFeed reports, there were a lot of factors at play. One of the main reasons seemed to be a result of the film company switching leadership and making some financial missteps. In addition, Wood, one of the film’s leads, was pregnant. This shut the production down, but with plans to resume.
Eventually, Wood backed out of 10 Things I Hate About Life, and soon after the actor found herself faced with a lawsuit from the film company. However, it didn’t take long for Wood’s legal team to speak out and set the record straight in a statement (via Deadline):
The lawsuit is preposterous and simply a bullying tactic from financially troubled producers. The production shut down in February 2013 when the producers ran out of money. Even after that, Evan agreed to resume production in Nov. 2013 by which time the producers said they would have cleared up their issues. However, the producers still could not get their act together, nor did they pay Evan money that was owed. Repeated subsequent promises by the producers to resume production and pay Evan also turned out to be false. Enough is enough. The producers, not Evan, have breached contract.”
Ultimately, the lawsuit never moved forward, and nothing ever happened with the film.
