‘Cruel Intentions’ TV series trailer is filled with Easter eggs, movie callbacks

Care to make a wager, silly rabbit? How many Easter eggs and callbacks to the original Cruel Intentions can you find in the trailer for Amazon’s TV series adaptation?

New footage of this year’s Cruel Intentions (on Prime Video Nov. 21) arrives today, and it is overflowing with references and inside jokes to the 1999 classic starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon, and Selma Blair. We’re not just talking about the presence of original actor Sean Patrick Thomas, who appeared as cello teacher Ronald Clifford in that first movie and now plays Professor Hank Chadwick at Manchester College in the TV drama.

The trailer kicks right off with a new cover of “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” originally recorded by The Verve and famously played over the final scenes of the movie. Another snapshot previews a new pool scene between two of the show’s leads that is reminiscent of when Witherspoon’s innocent daughter of the Dean, Annette Hargrove, gets in a pool with Phillippe’s notorious heartbreaker, Sebastian Valmont. There’s also the tease of a new “practice kiss” makeout scene, similar to the iconic image of Gellar and Blair’s Kathryn Merteuil and Cece Caldwell locking lips in Central Park.

One character even cracks a joke about losing her hymen while riding a “gorgeous Palomino named Lucky.” This is no doubt a callout to Cruel Intentions 2, the far-less culturally significant sequel of 2000 that featured a scene in which Keri Lynn Pratt’s Cherie Claymon becomes aroused while practicing horseback riding in Central Park.

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The Cruel Intentions TV series is set at Manchester College, with Sarah Catherine Hook playing the Gellar-esque role of Caroline Merteuil and Zac Burgess playing the Phillippe-like Lucien Belmont. When a brutal hazing incident threatens to shut down all fraternity and sorority operations on campus, these cousins hatch a plan for Lucien to seduce Annie Grover (Savannah Lee Smith), the daughter of the Vice President of the United States who’s a student at the university.

“You know what they’re not gonna do? Kick the Vice President’s daughter’s sorority off campus,” Caroline says.

The cast also includes Sara Silva as Cece Carroway, John Harlan Kim as Blaise Powell, Khobe Clarke as Scott Russell, and Brooke Lena Johnson as Beatrice Worth.

There are other references as well. Co-showrunners Sara Goodman and Phoebe Fisher previously pointed out to Entertainment Weekly, “There’s the car. The cross necklace…Wherever we felt like it served the story or the style of the show to tie it all together, we did. We love the movie.”

Watch the trailer for the eight-episode series above.