“I feel bad that I can’t deliver the murdering of the bunny for all the people who so desperately want it,” Kaplan said. “It’s really like people really want it.”
The new Paramount+ adaptation of “Fatal Attraction,” which sees Lizzy Kaplan and Joshua Jackson stepping into the roles made famous by Glenn Close and Michael Douglas, seeks to capture all of the erotic thrills of the 1987 film in an episodic format. But no adaptation can ever be an exact replica of its source material, so things always have to change. According to the show’s stars, that could mean that one of the film’s most iconic scenes will play out differently in the show.
The image of Anne Archer coming home to find a pet bunny boiling on the stove — a depraved trick from her husband’s mistress, played by Close — is one of the most enduring moments from “Fatal Attraction.” But in an interview with People, both Kaplan and Jackson hinted that fans shouldn’t expect to see another rabbit killed in the series.
“I mean, I feel bad that I can’t deliver the murdering of the bunny for all the people who so desperately want it,” Kaplan said. “It’s really like people really want it.”
Jackson added that the lack of bunny deaths is one of multiple ways that the show tweaked its source material to reflect contemporary sensibilities.
“In the same way that certain other elements inside the story are updated to 2023, the way that the bunny gets dealt with is more in keeping with our social mores today,” he said.
But that doesn’t mean “Fatal Attraction” will be a sanitized shell of its predecessor. In another recent interview, Jackson praised the series’ director Silver Tree for not compromising on the sexual elements of the story.
“The sex scenes are of great importance because they’re furthering the narrative. You have to believe that these people want to fuck each other,” he said. “God bless Silver for being amazing and coming at this from the female gaze… There are so many ways to tell the story of a sex scene that don’t need to be about certain pieces of a woman’s body. There are so many different ways that this can give you all of that stuff without it having to be exploitive of the women’s body.”
The first three episodes of “Fatal Attraction” premiere April 30 on Paramount+. New episodes will be available every Sunday through May 28.
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