Yahoo Lifestyle Cruel Intentions Cancelled at Prime Video After 1 Season
It’s a bittersweet symphony, that’s life: Prime Video’s series-adaptation of Cruel Intentions has been cancelled after one season, TVLine has confirmed.
The show — which debuted Nov. 21, 2024 — transported the iconic 1999 movie that starred Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon to the Washington, D.C.-adjacent Manchester College. It followed sorority president Caroline Merteuil (played by First Kill’s Sarah Catherine Hook), who was determined to have Annie Grover (the Gossip Girl reboot’s Savannah Lee Smith), the daughter of the Vice President of the United States, join her sorority, thereby saving the Greek system from being dismantled after a violent hazing incident. So Caroline tasked her womanizing step-brother Lucien Belmont (One Night’s Zac Burgess) with seducing innocent Annie and getting her to pledge. If he succeeded, Caroline would give him what he’s always wanted: her, for up to an hour. If he lost, she would get his beloved car.
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In the finale, Lucien retaliated after his step-sister Caroline revealed his secret (that his mother killed herself) to Annie, then told her step-brother that he was soulless and not worthy of love. Lucien, in turn, slept with Caroline’s mother (Claire Forlani) and recorded the sexual encounter. Meanwhile, Caroline’s sorority sister Cece (Sara Silva) and Annie both started to wise up to the blonde’s lies, with Annie suspecting that Caroline was the one who made the sexual misconduct complaint against Cece’s love interest, Professor Chadwick (the movie’s Sean Patrick Thomas).
In a closing montage, Caroline received a new upload to her and Lucien’s shared drive, where he put his sexual recordings for Caroline to view. The movie ended with Witherspoon’s Annette driving Sebastian’s beloved car after his death, with his journal in tow, whereas the show found a very-much-alive Lucien driving as he sported Caroline’s cross necklace, while ignoring her call and missing one from Annie.
“Honestly, who’s to say it’s not worse than getting hit by a car?” co-showrunner Phoebe Fisher joked of the series’ different ending, referencing the devastating way Sebastian’s life is cut off. In all seriousness, Fisher and co-showrunner Sara Goodman envisioned Cruel Intentions as an ongoing series, so they “weren’t ready to leave [Lucien] quite yet,” Fisher said.
Instead, “I think we chose emotional, psychological violence over physical violence,” Goodman shared with a laugh. “I think we wanted to see what was going to happen next to him, with all of them. So we can’t kill him. We just had to make him behave very, very badly.”
The series’ cast also included John Harlan Kim (9-1-1) as Blaise Powell, Khobe Clarke (Firefly Lane) as Scott Russell and Brooke Lena Johnson (YOU) as Beatrice Worth.
Our sister site Variety was first to report the cancellation.
Were you hoping for a Season 2? Hit the comments with your reactions!
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