Amazon’s Elle Woods YA Bet — and the Tricks to Make a Prequel Work

When Reese Witherspoon first had the idea to explore the teen years of her iconic Legally Blonde character, Elle Woods, the actress-producer’s production company turned to Laura Kittrell, who’d previously developed a mother-daughter story at Hello Sunshine. After penning the prequel pilot, Kittrell — the veteran comedy writer whose credits include Insecure, Black Monday and Amazon Freevee’s late and great High School — recruited former CW go-to Caroline Dries as her co-showrunner to help flesh out the origin story that would become Amazon Prime Video’s Elle.

The show stars Lexi Minetree as the pink-clad future feminist icon who is transplanted from the gilded privilege of her Bel-Air upbringing to the grungy world of 1990s Seattle. The eight-episode series — renewed for a second season months ahead of its July 1 premiere — is every bit the fish-out-of-water story that Legally Blonde was when it bowed 25 years ago. In the prequel Elle — and her parents (Tom Everett Scott, June Diane Raphael) — must learn to navigate a world that’s the polar opposite of everything they’ve known. Trading popularity and the bright Southern California sunshine for the more subdued tones of a rainy Seattle, Elle and her fashion-forward ’fits and bubbly outlook are not exactly embraced by her flannel-loving schoolmates, leading to a crisis of confidence. 

Born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisc., Dries was inspired to become a television writer after watching Dawson’s Creek with the late James Van Der Beek, whose final role was guesting on Elle. After graduating with a degree in psychology from New York University, Dries moved to L.A. and earned a master’s from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts in 2004.

According to Dries, whose résumé includes The CW’s Smallville, The Vampire Diaries, Batwoman and Gotham Knights, the idea is for Elle to appeal to mothers who came of age with Legally Blonde as well as their tween and teen daughters. And Elle’s story hits close to home for the writer, who was in college when Legally Blonde sashayed into theaters in 2001 — and who shares a young daughter with her wife.  

To hear Dries tell it, everyone could use a friend like Elle Woods right now, including the show’s queer character, Liz (Gabrielle Policano), as Elle’s two gay showrunners bring to the show a more “aspirational” view of what it was like to be queer in the ’90s. 

“If every friend had an Elle Woods at their side, the world would look a lot different. That’s why this show exists,” Dries told me hours before the series’ NYC premiere on Tuesday.

Elle is one of the year’s most-anticipated new scripted series (its trailer has collected more than 10 million views since dropping June 9) and arrives amid a time of retrenchment for Amazon’s Prime Video. Greenlit by Jennifer Salke in May 2024, the show has found favor with Amazon’s head of global television, Peter Friedlander, who handed out an early season two pickup in January after seeing early cuts. The series jibes with Prime Video’s efforts to build on its success in the young adult space following The Summer I Turned Pretty, Off Campus and We Were Liars.

Elle also represents a big IP play for Prime as it’s the first major series swing from Amazon’s $8.5 billion deal to acquire MGM in 2022.  

Today you’ll learn more about the strategy and storytelling driving Prime’s new YA play, including:

• What it means to write “responsible episodes,” and what Dries’ CW training around long seasons had to do with it
• How casting largely unknowns allowed the production to spend big on ’90s sounds (see Pearl Jam, R.E.M., The Breeders)  
• How Elle conjures the backstory of some of Legally Blonde’s most iconic moments (think: that Playboy bunny costume)
• Witherspoon’s note-giving style and contributions on set — and whether she’ll appear in the series
• How the series survived the wave of Salke-to-Friedlander regime change and the Prime priorities it satisfies
• Dries’ memories of James Van Der Beek during the shoot
• What’s “evergreen” about Elle as Dries and Kittrell hope to follow her right up to Legally Blonde’s first day of law school
• Plus an exclusive clip from the series