Elle, the much-anticipated Legally Blonde prequel that we didn’t even realize we needed, finally got its teaser trailer!
Attention, cinephiles and Legally Blonde fans: The teaser trailer for Elle, the upcoming prequel series exploring what Elle Woods was like before she donned those power suits and became the legal wiz at Harvard, has been released by Amazon Prime Video.
As expected from the title, Elle takes place in 1995, but what it offers us is far more than some nostalgic ’90s-era fluff. We get a glimpse of what life was like for Elle before she became a Harvard icon, complete with scrunchies, questionable fashion (in their own words, not ours), messy relationships, and the forbidden love affair she had well before her college days.
In short, Elle Woods is still a teenager who learns to be Elle Woods. Before she was an overachieving lawyer in the middle of her Harvard redemption arc, she was just trying to survive her high school years with confidence intact, and let’s face it, she succeeded better than most of us could have.
Harvard fish out of water? Not yet. High school fish out of water, definitely. Same story, just a little bit younger.
And while this sounds like another run-of-the-mill prequel series, we promise you won’t be disappointed. The project is being created by Laura Kittrell, the creator of Insecure and High School (which was, of course, also about the excruciating specificity of being a girl), in collaboration with Caroline Dries.
Executive producing alongside Laura is Reese Witherspoon through her production company, Hello Sunshine, and Marc Platt, who originally produced the movie.
The directors of the first two episodes? That would be Jason Moore, the creator of Pitch Perfect. Basically, all the right people are working on this show. While it is, technically speaking, an expansion of the existing franchise, it doesn’t feel quite like pure franchise merchandise. This is going places, and we’re excited to see where it goes.
Leading the cast as Elle Woods is Lexi Minetree, chosen specifically to capture the warmth and wit that made Reese Witherspoon’s portrayal iconic. Supporting her is the actress playing Eva Wood, Elle’s mother and the secret strength at the heart of the series.
But there’s one last piece of information we’re just dying to share. In an interesting nod to the time period, the show features James Van Der Beek in recurring roles. Yes, the same actor who starred as Dawson Leery on the WB’s Dawson’s Creek in the late 90s. We’re willing to bet he’ll make you appreciate Elle all the more.
We think there’s one very important aspect of Elle Woods’ character in Legally Blonde that gets overlooked. She wasn’t about her blonde hair, her popularity, or even her looks. What defined her was her determination not to let others’ assumptions limit her potential.
Set in 1995, created and written by a team of talented individuals dedicated to capturing what it means to be a young girl and starring a mother-daughter pair in the lead? Count us in. We’ll be watching the show, Elle.
The first season of Elle is scheduled to debut on Prime Video on July 1, 2026, with the second season announced in advance.
