‘Do Revenge’ Director Says She Rewrote Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Character as a Nod to ‘Cruel Intentions’

May Kathryn Merteuil live on. The iconic villain, who we first met almost 25 years ago in Cruel Intentions, is getting a Do Revenge makeover as a prep school principal.

Jennifer Kaitlyn Robinson, writer and director of the Netflix dark comedy starring Camila Mendes (Riverdale) and Maya Hawke (Stranger Things), admitted she based Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Do Revenge character on Kathryn, the vindictive mean-girl she played in the 90s classic.

“She was my first dream choice,” Robinson gushed to IndieWire regarding Gellar’s casting. “And it was one of those things where you don’t think she’s going to do it. I was like, ‘Yeah, of course, let’s offer it to her and see what happens.’ You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. But when she said yes, I was flabbergasted and so excited.”

She continued, “I will say, her saying yes was kind of co-signing this movie, and made me feel like we were doing something right. It really was like the turning point for me where I was just like, ‘Oh, I think this is like might really work and it’s going to be good.'”

Drawing inspiration from a slew of 90s movies like Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You, Robinson recalled changing the principal’s dialogue to pay homage to Kathryn once she found out Gellar would be reading for the part.

“I just heard her and sat there and literally thought about Kathryn from Cruel Intentions, like, if she was the headmaster of the school, what advice would she give?” Robinson said.

Gellar opened up about the nod to her movie in an interview with Netflix’s Tudum, where she said “what’s even better than paying homage is to redefine and bring something to a new generation. And that’s exactly what Jenn does with this film.”

She added, “There is definitely a version where the headmaster is the adult Kathryn, but that will be up to the audience to decide.”

Do Revenge follows two high school students, one fallen It-Girl (Mendes) and one new girl (Hawke), as they team up to exact revenge on those who wronged them. The movie is currently streaming on Netflix.