‘Holes’ Remake with Gender-Swapped Lead Canceled by Disney

by

Disney+ has cancelled plans for a remake of the 2003 film starring Shia LaBeouf. The remake was intended to flip the original story’s genders, with a female protagonist and a male antagonist.

A TV series inspired by the movie and the 1998 novel it was based on was greenlit earlier this year. Shay Rudolph, known for her roles in The Baby-Sitters Club and Lethal Weapon, will take on the part originally played by LaBeouf, and Greg Kinnear will portray the film’s antagonist. The cast also features Aidy Bryant as camp counselor Sissy, Noah Cottrell as Kitch, a kitchen worker, and Flor Delis Alicea, Anire Kim Amoda, Iesha Daniels, Sophie Dieterlen, Alexandra Doke, and Maeve Press, who will all play Hayley’s fellow campers at Camp Yucca.

The series pilot was set to be directed by Jac Schaeffer, who would be executive producing along with Drew Goddard, Sarah Esberg, Mike Medavoyl, Walden Media, and Shamrock, which holds the rights to Holes. The synopsis of the remake read:

This is a new take on Louis Sachar’s classic 1998 novel. It follows a teenage girl who is sent to a harsh detention camp run by a cruel Warden, where the inmates are forced to dig holes for an unknown reason.

Disney has been making a lot of TV shows based on their movies – think recent projects like Cheaper by the Dozen, Willow, and a Wizards of Waverly Place continuation. However, it looks like not every planned remake will actually happen. The reason Disney cancelled the Holes series isn’t public, but it’s likely a good thing.

‘Holes’ Was Adapted into a Great Movie in 2003

I absolutely loved Holes when it came out in 2003! It’s based on the fantastic book by Louis Sachar, and he even wrote the movie script, which is awesome. The story follows Stanley Yelnats VI – Shia LaBeouf plays him – and it’s just so unfair how he ends up at this awful juvenile detention camp in Texas after being wrongly accused of stealing something. Once he gets there, he finds out the warden is super mean and makes all the kids dig holes all day in this dried-up lakebed, because he’s convinced there’s hidden treasure out there.

Okay, let me tell you about this movie. It really assembled a fantastic cast – you’ve got Shia LaBeouf, but also legends like Sigourney Weaver and Jon Voight, plus Patricia Arquette, Tim Blake Nelson, Dulé Hill, and even Eartha Kitt! It wasn’t a blockbuster, but it did really well with both critics and audiences – a solid 78% on Rotten Tomatoes from the critics and 76% from viewers. What everyone kept saying was that it genuinely worked for all ages. It managed to entertain kids and their parents equally, which is a tough thing to pull off. I even saw a bunch of comments saying it holds up incredibly well – people said it feels just as magical now as it did when they first saw it years ago.

I’ve been reading a lot about this movie, and so many reviewers are saying it tells a genuinely original story. That’s something a simple gender-swap remake just couldn’t achieve, and honestly, maybe that’s why this project quietly disappeared – though I’m hoping it might resurface someday.

Read More

2025-12-14 00:32