After years of development limbo, unfortunate delays, and the death and rebirth of MGM, the Valley Girl remake is finally out. Based on the hit 1983 classic starring Deborah Foreman and Nicolas Cage, the new Valley Girl takes the basic outline of the original film and turns it into a jukebox musical about self-actualization and independence. Directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg, the film is set to some of the greatest pop songs of the 1980s and features tunes by Madonna, Queen, The Cure, and many more. The film boasts an all-star cast including Jessica Rothe, Josh Whitehouse, Mae Whitman, Chloe Bennet, Judy Greer, and Alicia Silverstone.
Writer Amy Talkington had been working on getting Valley Girl off the ground for years, and the film's ultimate release on Video on Demand is the culmination of nearly a decade of hard work. As she puts it, "I pitched this movie when I was nine months pregnant, and my daughter's almost 12."
While promoting the release of Valley Girl, Talkington spoke to Screen Rant about her work on the film, from the unique challenges of writing a jukebox musical to crafting a movie that celebrates female empowerment while still indulging in the materialistic delights of 1980s "mall culture." She talks about getting original stars from the 1983 film to have cameos in the remake and discusses the one song she wasn't allowed to include in the movie.
Valley Girl is out now in select drive-in theaters and Video on Demand.
I loved your movie. What a warm, cozy blanket that made me feel so comfy in this difficult time, I guess is my logline for it.
Yes, thank you! That's what I hope it can be. It's been a long journey getting this movie out there, and it seems to have landed at a really good time for this kind of movie to be arriving as a joyful nostalgic distraction.
For sure. Take me back to the beginning. Is it the original Deborah Foreman movie? Was that always an influence on you? When did the idea come to do your Valley Girl?
I was obsessed with the movie as a tween. For many reasons. My obsession continued because I had sort of a similar experience to Julie when I was a little bit older. Matt Smith, the producer, had decided to do this. He had the idea of remaking Valley Girl as a jukebox musical using all 80s songs. I heard about it, and it just spoke to me, because I felt like the idea of making it as a musical would hopefully justify remaking such a beloved movie, because it's such a different animal. It's really more, you know, inspired by the original, since it's such a different tone and such a different creation. To me, it was a way to look at and celebrate the original for 2020... Well, it wasn't 2020 at the time, but from a 21st century point of view.
You said you had a similar experience to Julie?
I did not grow up in the valley, but I grew up in Dallas. When I was a teen and tween, I was in North Dallas, and we had the galleria. It was very mall-oriented. It was very materialistic and superficial in the mid-80s. There was a big arts, music, punk rock scene happening downtown in a neighborhood called Deep Ellum. It was something I discovered when I was, like, 15. Not only did I sort of fall in love there, but I discovered music and art, experimented in theater and graffiti art, and just sort of fell in love with life and art through that scene. I just, I don't know, I was excited about telling that story, and that's one of the other big changes I've tried to make in the update; it's not just a love story. It's really Randy helping to open up her worldview and discover her creative self.
I got kind of emotional during the scene where her dad shows her the footage of Sally Ride's space shuttle taking off.
I love that scene, too.
He doesn't want her to be with the punk guy because he's a dad, but he also doesn't quite know how to express how much he wants her to be her own person, as well.
Yes. Exactly. That's his way of being able to tell her he's proud of her and give her permission to chase her dreams.
It's so great. I can't wait to show this to my nieces, who are teens and tweens, and I want them to watch this movie so badly.
Cool, thank you. That's a compliment. They definitely seem to be responding, the ones that I've talked to. They really seem to enjoy it.
We're a big Grease house, and this is right up our alley.
I take that as a compliment. Obviously, Grease was a reference point. How could it not be? It's the ultimate teen musical. That's high praise, thank you.
Tell me a little about... I don't know how it works in the screenplay, when you're writing a jukebox musical, do you have it written, like, "This is the song that I want, but if we can't afford it, we could also use this or this?" How does that process work?
The songs are the centerpiece of the movie. The songs tell the story of the movie. There were very few pieces where we could have pulled out the song and replaced it with another song where it could have been as successful, or even nearly as successful. There were some caveats. In the early drafts, I had some Buzzcocks, and I had more The Cure, and I had some Ramones. They wanted us to use big, recognizable songs, but they told us not to worry about the rights, aside from Prince. In the first draft, I had Let's Go Crazy. At the time, Prince's music was just impossible to license, so we pulled that out. But aside from that, we picked the songs that told the story the best way, and we were able to get all the rights. There was a moment when Under Pressure was in question and was proving to be challenging, but the creative team felt really strongly. That was something that was there from the inception. It was in my initial pitch, it was in every draft. It was a number that Rachel Goldenberg, our director, was super excited about and kind of brings everything together and launches us into the final act of the movie. So they managed to get it, thankfully.
I'm trying to think, like, if you didn't have it, it's the "11 o'clock number," right?
Yeah, it was pretty essential! It's funny, because some people asked me, "were you involved in picking the songs?" And oh my god, it was half of writing the screenplay! I mean, it's unconventional screenplay-writing, but half of writing the screenplay was poring over these songs and finding the right ones and finding ways to shake them or pull out a chorus or reprise a phrase or a verse so that we could have these recognizable pop songs feel, hopefully, really integral to the story, and really personal to the characters who are singing them. That was the hope. I'll tell you, the one that was still... The one that we were working on up until three days before shooting was the aerobics mash-up, getting that right. We could not find a single song that could accomplish what we wanted that number to accomplish, so we decided to go with the mashup idea. So figuring out which songs worked and getting the rights and figuring out how they would mash up. I had an idea of how the lyrics would mash up and work, but it's a whole other matter to get it to work musically. That's where the music producer, Harvey Mason, was involved, in going back and forth and figuring out how to make that work.
And it really does work in the movie.
Thank you! It's my kid's favorite song. They love it!
I think my favorite is the punk version of Crazy For You, but that might be because I was once in an all-male Madonna cover band, a long time ago...
Are you kidding me?! (Laughs) You're kind of the target audience, then!
We were terrible, but I thought we were pretty amazing.
That's hilarious. That was a fun one. Josh is so good. Josh plays guitar, he sings, he has a band. He can deliver that performance so convincingly because that's what he does. I found it pretty swoony. It's a swoony scene. I like that one, too. I like them all. Each one has their distinct thing that it's trying to do. I like a lot of the songs, I like them all.
Were you on set for shooting? Or is it a case where you give the screenplay to Rachel and say, "This is yours now, treat it gently?"
I definitely gave the movie over the Rachel, there's no question. But I was on set a lot, as well. We worked together for seven or eight months. She had a lot of ideas, we changed one or two of the songs, I'm not sure how many, maybe a few of the songs. We shifted. She had tons of ideas, and we worked together for all those months to where everyone felt pretty good about where the script was. So, when I was on set, it was more just for fun, you know? To see what they were doing, and to throw in some words, like, "They wouldn't have said that in the 80s," and we would make little tweaks on set, occasionally. But I was more on set for the fun of it, since the script seemed to be where Rachel and Matt wanted it to be at that point. So, yeah. But it was fun to be on set. The first day... So, we got a call from the art department for photographs, for anyone with pictures from the 80s to please send them because they needed pictures for set dressing. So I sent in a bunch of pictures and I didn't hear anything else about it. Then, on the first day of shooting, the first location was Julie's home with the parents, and all those scenes in the living room. I walked on the set on the first day, and I looked around, and I am young Julie! When I was a girl. All the pictures, there's my Uncle Billy, there's my mom, there's me and my brother, everywhere I looked, there were pictures of my family, which was just so surreal. Obviously, I identified with Julie a lot, and I brought a lot of my own experience to her, so looking around and walking the space, I was finally in their living room, and – oh my god – it's my family. So strange! It was cool.
The movie had some high-profile delays. One of them, I don't know if there's anything that I should say about that, other than this is the role Logan Paul was born to play, but that's a whole other conversation. But could you talk about being forced to sit on this movie for so long? Two years, right?
Two years, yeah. Here's the thing about this movie. This movie hit every Hollywood roadblock you could imagine. I pitched this movie when I was nine months pregnant, and my daughter's almost 12. The thing is, typical development hell is, like, "nobody's excited in your first draft." This, the first draft, everybody was so excited about it. This was pre-Glee. Glee came out right after I wrote the first draft. Everybody was super excited about the script. We got an amazing director, coming off Broadway, Jason Moore, who went on to direct Pitch Perfect. And we had kind of a blinking green light. We were headed towards production, it seemed. I did a pass with the director. It seemed like everything was falling into place, and then MGM went bankrupt. I've had a Hollywood curveballs, but the studio has never gone bankrupt for me before! So then it sat on the shelf for three years. And it's the only project that was in deep development at the old MGM that actually survived at the new MGM, which was a completely different set of people. Then, we went into the process of figuring out... Jason had moved on and made Pitch Perfect and was off doing other stuff. So then we had to find the right director and the stars had to align again, getting the script in shape for the new director. This movie, it's just to say, it almost didn't surprise me. We hit so many bumps and roadblocks along the way, so it was like, "Okay, now there's this one." So we decided to wait a little bit longer, and then the pandemic hit! They were going to do a theatrical release with the digital release, and they scrapped that, but at the last minute, they added the drive-ins, which is great. It finally made it out. There's a feeling that, at the end of the day, for all these reasons, maybe it is the right time. It's like a pop of joy that can maybe distract people from the pretty hellish situation that we're in right now. There were a lot of things that delayed it in the end. There were more studio changes and regime changes and et cetera, so, yeah.
I don't think it's a spoiler now that the movie is out, but you've got an awesome Deborah Foreman cameo.
And we have E.G. Daily and Heidi Holicker, also!
Yeah, but Deborah is the one I had the biggest crush on. My Chauffeur is one of my favorites.
Oh yeah. She's so sweet. I was so nervous when she came to set and she's just so generous and kind and enthusiastic. She's been nothing but positive about this. Yeah.
Was there ever an attempt to get Nic Cage in it? Was there a role written for him, at all?
There was not a role written for him. I think there might have been something of, "Is this something he would be interested in thinking about doing?" But I think he was busy on a movie. We didn't have a role for him. Look, if there had been interest, we would have found a role for him for sure! We would have written one. We wrote the part for Deborah and Heidi and E.G., and we wrote a little part for L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, who has a little cameo. So we certainly would have found a place for Nic Cage if he had been available.
Valley Girl is out now in select drive-in theaters and Video on Demand.