Forty-five years after she was marooned in The Blue Lagoon, Brooke Shields is getting cast away again in Almost Paradise. She’s set to star in a new sitcom that takes the concept of the 1980 drama in a whole new direction. Deadline reports that she’s set to star opposite David Spade in the new series.
The show would star Shields and Spade as a long-married couple stranded on a tropical island — The Blue Lagoon as a family sitcom, in essence. It comes with a solid sitcom pedigree, as Danny Zuker (Modern Family) and Aaron Kaplan (The Neighborhood) are attached to produce the multi-camera sitcom. Shields apparently conceived the idea for the series with Kaplan, then brought Spade on board. Both Shields and Spade are sitcom veterans; Shields headlined Suddenly Susan in the 1990s, while Spade, after his departure from Saturday Night Live, led Just Shoot Me! and Rules of Engagement. The series has a two-script commitment with Fox, but has not yet been formally greenlit.
What Is ‘The Blue Lagoon’ About?
Directed by Randal Kleiser (Grease) and based on a 1908 novel of the same name by Henry de Vere Stacpoole, The Blue Lagoon is set in the 19th century, and concerns a trio of castaways: young cousins Emmeline (Shields) and Richard (Christopher Atkins, Dallas), and grizzled sailor Paddy (Leo McKern, The Prisoner). Marooned on a tropical island, Paddy does his best to look after the two, but dies while they’re still children. Once Emmeline and Richard hit puberty, it’s up to the two of them, and nature, to figure out their changing bodies and their blossoming feelings for each other. The film was critically savaged at the time, but was a box office hit, grossing $58.8 million USD on a $4.5 million budget.
1980’s The Blue Lagoon is the most famous adaptation of the novel, but it wasn’t the first. A 1923 silent version is now lost, while a 1949 version, with Jean Simmons and Donald Houston, had to remove much of the novel’s sensuality thanks to contemporary censorship. The 1980 film was followed by 1991’s Return to the Blue Lagoon, which starred Brian Krause (Charmed) as the son of Emmeline and Richard, and Milla Jovovich as a girl who implausibly gets marooned on the same tropical island; it was a critical and commercial failure. It was loosely adapted as a teen romance for the Lifetime network, Blue Lagoon: The Awakening, which featured a cameo role by Christopher Atkins.
Almost Paradise is in development; it has not yet been formally greenlit.
via Collider