Paramount Pictures has announced that Alexander Payne is to direct Tracy Flick Can’t Win, a sequel to 1999’s Election, and that his running mate will once again be Reese Witherspoon as the titular go-getting student.
Deadline reports that Tracy Flick Can’t Win will be made for Paramount+, and that it is based on Tom Perotta’s 2022 novel of the same name. In it we find Tracy Flick is now a hardworking assistant principal at a public high school in suburban New Jersey. She’s still ambitious but feeling a little stuck and underappreciated in midlife, that is until she gets a jolt of good news when the long-time principal abruptly announces his retirement, creating a rare opportunity for Tracy to ascend to the top job.
Election was based Perrotta’s 1998 novel and told the story of a high school teacher played by Matthew Broderick who finds himself on a collision course with the over-achieving student politician, Tracy Flick.
Tracy Flick Can’t Win would be the second of Witherspoon’s breakout roles that she’s intending to revisit, although her return as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde 3 has been stuck in development limbo for a while, so it’s likely we’ll see her in a classroom long before she gets into a courtroom.
SEE ALSO: Reese Witherspoon developing a Goldilocks and the Three Bears movie
Election also put Alexander Payne on the map, with the director going on to make the Oscar bothering trio of About Schmidt, Sideways, and The Descendants. Tracy Flick Can’t Win will be his first film since 2017 Matt Damon vehicle Downsizing.
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