Writer/director Gil Junger certainly hasn't been lacking in work. He's mostly a TV helmer jumping from show to show, wherever the next gig takes him, but "10 Things I Hate About You" remains his greatest achievement. The 1999 teen comedy starred Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a retelling of Shakespeare's "Taming Of The Shrew" that was more clever and enjoyable that it had any right to be. Junger tried to recapture the magic with a TV series that starred Nicholas Braun, Chris Zylka and Larry Miller and didn't last a single season, but he's going to be take another swing at the material.
Variety reports that Hayley Atwell, for reasons we're still trying to figure out, has signed on to star in "10 Things I Hate About Life" a quasi-sequel to 'Hate About You.' Junger will write and direct the movie "that advances the situations from the original film" and was inspired, bizarrely, after Junger came "across a man who had committed suicide at a scenic overlook." Um, okay then.
Junger is pretty upfront with the reasons for doing this, telling that trade that the residuals alone he made on 'Hate About You' in 2011 were more than he was paid to direct the movie in 1999. So a sequel to the movie that keeps on giving to his bank account? Why the hell not. We're fans of Atwell, so we're curious, though trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle over a decade later could prove to be elusive, but at least the casting is off to a good start. No word yet on her role or just how much this will connect to the previous film, but we'll find out soon enough as shooting will kick off in November.
