Reese Witherspoon says Top Gun: Maverick provided "inspiration" for Legally Blonde 3

Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde
(Image credit: IMDb)

Reese Witherspoon has revealed that Top Gun: Maverick has provided inspiration for her own long-awaited threequel. 

"I’m still hoping that Legally Blonde 3 is gonna come together in the right way," the Elle Woods actor told USA Today. "It’s just like Top Gun: they waited a long time to make another version of that movie, and I loved the nostalgia piece they incorporated in it. So definitely that gave us a lot of inspiration about what we would want to do with Elle Woods and make sure that we had all those same touchstones that mattered to people [back] then."

She added: "I feel like these characters are my friends, so I safeguard them. I would never make the subpar, mediocre version of their story." The threequel will follow Elle at 40 and it'll be the first time the character has appeared on screen since 2003’s Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde

Mindy Kaling, the creator of Netflix series Never Have I Ever, and Dan Goor, the creator of Brooklyn 99, are attached to write the script. The movie was first announced in 2018 and a release date of May 2022 was announced last year, but there hasn't been an update on the movie since. 

The original 2001 comedy follows sorority girl Elle, whose boyfriend Warner breaks up with her on the basis that she isn’t "serious" enough to be dating a Harvard Law School student. Elle then sets out to win a place at Harvard, too, in order to prove a point and win him back. Over the course of the movie, she realizes that Warner isn’t worth winning back and instead goes on to be a successful lawyer – all while dressed head to toe in pink.

While we wait for Legally Blonde 3 to arrive on our screens, check out our guide to the other exciting upcoming movies on the way this year and beyond. 

Entertainment Writer

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related across the Total Film and SFX sections. I help bring you all the latest news and also the occasional feature too. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.