Disney+ Shelves Gender-Swapped TV Adaptation of a 2003 Movie Series
Disney+ has decided not to move forward with its planned TV adaptation of Louis Sachar’s novel Holes, which inspired the 2003 Disney film. The streaming service had ordered a pilot earlier this year, but the project has now been shelved.
The rebooted pilot would have taken a fresh approach by following a teenage girl at a detention camp instead of the original male protagonist. Shay Rudolph was cast in the lead role as Hayley, with Greg Kinnear set to play the camp warden.
Other cast members included Aidy Bryant as camp counselor Sissy, Noah Cottrell as kitchen worker Kitch, and Flor Delis Alicea, Anire Kim Amoda, Iesha Daniels, Sophie Dieterlen, Alexandra Doke, and Maeve Press as Hayley’s fellow campers at Camp Yucca.
The creative team behind the pilot featured Alina Mankin as writer, Liz Phang as showrunner, and Jac Schaeffer as director, according to Variety.
Executive producers included Mankin, Phang, Drew Goddard via Goddard Textiles, Sarah Esberg, and Mike Medavoy via Shamrock, which holds the rights to Holes. Walden Media, which produced the original film, and 20th Television were involved in producing the pilot, with Andrea Massaro from Goddard Textiles serving as co-executive producer.
The original Holes film, directed by Andrew Davis and based on Sachar’s 1998 novel, starred Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Patricia Arquette, Tim Blake Nelson, and Shia LaBeouf in his theatrical debut.
The story follows Stanley Yelnats IV (LaBeouf), who is sent to a Texas juvenile detention camp where inmates must dig holes under the strict supervision of Warden Walker (Weaver). The warden secretly searches for the treasure of outlaw Katherine “Kissin’ Kate” Barlow (Arquette).
The film received positive reviews from critics and audiences alike. Rotten Tomatoes reports a 78% approval rating from 138 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The site described it as “imaginative, intelligent family entertainment”. Metacritic gave it a score of 71 out of 100, indicating generally favorable reviews. CinemaScore audiences awarded the film an “A” grade.
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