’10 Things I Hate About You’ director teases plot details of follow-up film

Twenty-six years after 10 Things I Hate About You first hit theaters, love for the teen rom-com is still going strong — so it was only a matter of time before director Gil Junger got to work on a follow-up.

“You can’t imagine how many people have asked me over the last three years, ‘Why aren’t you doing another one?'” Junger tells Entertainment Weekly. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I should.'”

Earlier this month, the filmmaker revealed that he’s teaming up with screenwriter Naya Elle James and original 10 Things producer Andrew Lazar to develop a spiritual successor, 10 Things I Hate About Dating, which he now describes to EW as “a love story for people who’ve deleted the apps and re-downloaded them.”

Intended as the first installment in a new trilogy, the movie would be followed by 10 Things I Hate About Marriage and 10 Things I Hate About Kids if all goes according to plan.

It’s worth noting that the original 10 Things I Hate About You hailed from Disney, and sources at the studio tell EW that nothing is in the works there with Junger. (He’s also not involved in the upcoming 10 Things I Hate About You stage musical.)

According to Junger, 10 Things I Hate About Dating wouldn’t be a direct sequel and would focus on new characters if it gets the green light.

“There’s no Kat,” he clarifies, referencing the protagonist memorably played by Julia Stiles in the 1999 film. “I intentionally did not want to reflect back to the original movie because Heath [Ledger] is dead. I just thought it would be kind of sad.” (Ledger, whose breakout role was playing Stiles’ love interest, died in 2008.)

Junger adds that while the new script has “nothing to do with the original” plot-wise, fans can expect a very similar “vibe” from the love story. Whereas 10 Things I Hate About You took its cues from Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, 10 Things I Hate About Dating is looking to put a contemporary spin on Molière’s 1666 play The Misanthrope.

“It’s a play about someone who is repulsed by high society and glamor and everything that’s fake and flashy,” Junger explains, promising that Dating will have “the same blend of heart and humor [as the first movie] because it’s the same team producing and directing it.”

James, who is co-writing the new script with Junger, tells EW that 10 Things I Hate About Dating follows “a brutally honest podcaster” and a “polished dating coach” who are forced to lead a couple’s retreat together despite their vastly different views on love.

“[He’s] a man who’s critiquing society, and he wants to withdraw and not be a part of it. But he’s very much a part of the machine of social media and creating controversy,” James teases. “And she, on the other hand, is very polished, and she’s proclaiming authenticity. But there’s a lot of lies that she tells herself in order to believe in her own message.”

She adds, “They both have to be humbled, and they both have to come to terms with their own hypocrisy.”

As Junger puts it, it’s “not a rom-com,” but “a trauma-bond-com.”

To Junger, James is the project’s secret weapon. “She’s one of the strongest, most independent women I know, and easily one of the smartest — if not the smartest,” he says. “And I thought, ‘Well, wait a minute, why do I have to represent the female voice? Hers is so strong.'”

Junger also hopes that 10 Things I Hate About Dating will follow in the footsteps of its predecessor by giving audiences a protagonist they can connect with, and perhaps be inspired by.

“That character of Kat influenced an entire generation of women,” Junger muses. “And that has brought me so much pride. That was one of the biggest things for me in making the movie, was I wanted her to be a woman who doesn’t falter to all of the norms, all of the difficulties and learning bumps that young women go through in high school. She’s together. She doesn’t need anyone else’s approval.”

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As for whether the second and third entries in the planned trilogy would also modernize classic stories, Junger says that will ultimately come down to audience demand. That said, “Why not? There is great literature to pull from with universal themes.”

James is right there with him. “I was at a party,” she recalls, “and they said, ‘What’s your dream job?’ And I said, ‘I’m doing it. I’m adapting classic literature into a rom-com film.’ There’s nothing I can think of that would be more suited to my life’s passion.”