Good news, legal rom-com fans: Reese Witherspoon is reprising the iconic role of Elle Woods, attorney at law, in a third installment of the Legally Blonde franchise. (Is it technically a franchise if there are only two movies? I digress.) As if that weren’t exciting enough, Mindy Kaling has signed on to write the script along with frequent writing partner Dan Goor, Deadline reports.
The film will be produced by Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine studio, and although the concept isn’t entirely new—Legally Blonde 3 was announced in 2018—Kaling and Goor will bring fresh eyes to the project. This isn’t Kaling and Witherspoon’s first collaboration, of course: the two co-starred in A Wrinkle in Time, and they even have nicknames for each other. (Spoiler: Witherspoon calls Kaling “Min Diesel.” Is that not the most charming, mom-bestowed name you could possibly imagine?) “Elle Woods is so iconic, proving you can be girly and smart at the same time. Bend and snap people!” Kaling wrote on Instagram on Tuesday, shortly after the news was announced.
Kaling’s latest project was Netflix’s standout teen comedy Never Have I Ever, which focused on a young Indian-American woman attempting to balance grieving her father with the all-consuming high school pastime of, well, trying to get laid. If it’s anything to go by, Kaling certainly hasn’t lost her touch, and we all know what a fan she is of romantic comedies (she even used to run a blog under the alias “Mindy Ephron”): we can’t wait to see what she’ll do with the saga of Elle Woods.