Deep in Legally Blonde 3 pre-production, actress and producer Reese Witherspoon shares that Top Gun: Maverick actually provided inspiration. Mindy Kaling and Dan Goor are co-writing for the Maverick-inspired threequel. In an interview with USA Today, the actress talked about how the Top Gun sequel opened insights to the third movie they are having on the pipeline.
Definitely, this does not mean that Elle Woods will be piloting jets. In Witherspoon’s words:
I’m still hoping that ‘Legally Blonde 3’ is gonna come together in the right way. It’s just like ‘Top Gun’: They waited a long time to make another version of that movie, and I loved the nostalgia piece they incorporated in it. So definitely that gave us a lot of inspiration about what we would want to do with Elle Woods and make sure that we had all those same touchstones that mattered to people (back) then.
Reese Witherspoon Says Top Gun 2 Inspires Legally Blonde 3
Image: MGM
The main takeaway from her answer is nostalgia. Meaning, the upcoming movie will look at the most memorable scenes from the original. Then, they will find a way to effectively call these back for audience connection. Indeed, many of today’s successful projects have tied generations together. Top Gun: Maverick has its $1B box office mark to prove that it’s effective when used at just the right amount for just the right impact.
More importantly, Witherspoon has Elle Woods very close to her heart. And, the same goes for all the characters that Elle has come in contact with. Being such, she is protective of their stories and how it can be told for the sequel. She further states:
I feel like these characters are my friends, so I safeguard them. I would never make the subpar, mediocre version of their story.
Reese Witherspoon Says Top Gun 2 Inspires Legally Blonde 3
Image: MGM
Legally Blonde premiered in cinemas in 2001 with a budget of $18M. Audiences loved the bubbly Harvard Law student who won their hearts with a worldwide box office record of $141.8M. It was almost 8 times the movie’s budget. Two years later, MGM released its sequel Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde which had a budget of $25M and still generated a box office record that is times that amount. Specifically $125M.
While the second movie had its disparate reception from critics and audiences, the charm is still alive to this day. Of course, the threequel will have to navigate how to deliver the old stereotypes to the current generation. Or perhaps that can be the movie itself. Without a release date as of yet, we can only hope for updates and developments to come sooner rather than later. Hopefully, unlike Top Gun: Maverick, they take less than three decades to make the third movie.
