No boiled bunnies, no problem: How 'Fatal Attraction' TV show reimagines the iconic movie

Spoiler alert! The following post contains details about the first three episodes of Paramount+ series "Fatal Attraction" (now streaming).

Let’s get one thing out of the way: No hares were harmed in the TV remake of “Fatal Attraction."

In the original 1987 movie, Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) memorably takes revenge on her ex, Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas), by throwing his daughter’s pet rabbit on the stove. But Lizzy Caplan, who plays Alex in the series version on Paramount+, says her character’s actions are far worse than cooking cottontails.

“There is no bunny-boiling,” Caplan explains. “If anything, it poses a larger question: Why do so many people want to see a bunny die? People are crestfallen when they find out the bunny does not die.”

The spared hares are one of the many key differences in the updated “Attraction” (first three episodes now streaming; new episodes Sundays), which aims to put a female-centric spin on the inherently sexist (and oddly sanctimonious) film.

Alex and Dan's affair isn't just 'physical,' Lizzy Caplan says

In the movie, Alex seemingly targets Dan after meeting him at a party and suggests they sleep together when his wife is out of town. But the relationship happens more organically in the show: Alex (Caplan) and Dan (Joshua Jackson) both work in the legal system and bond in the courtroom when they’re put on the same case. She later consoles him when he’s passed over for a big promotion, and they fall into bed after a drunken night out.

“She meets Dan, and they really do hit it off. This isn’t just a physical affair; it’s an emotional one as well,” Caplan says. “They really like each other, and he’s the first man (who) reciprocates her interest in a way that matches her level of interest. Of course, he’s married and unavailable, but I don’t believe at all that’s what draws Alex to him.”

Alex's loneliness and isolation make her more sympathetic

Early in the third episode, we see Alex angrily confront a neighbor who’s been ghosting her. And in a phone call, we hear Alex’s therapist curtly drop her as a patient. For Caplan, it suggests a “pattern” of people cutting Alex out of their lives, which makes her that much more rattled when Dan tries to do the same.

“There have been many examples in Alex’s life of her either being left and abandoned, or Alex herself leaving or abandoning somebody before they have a chance to do the same thing to her,” Caplan says.

Over the course of the eight-episode season, we learn that Alex suffers from unspecified mental illness and carries emotional baggage from childhood. “I really thought if we could find a way to make the audience feel something other than fear and hatred for Alex, then we’ve done a good job,” Caplan says. “If we can have them feel any degree of empathy for her, and see that had a therapist stepped in, or had she had a better dad, perhaps her fate would’ve turned out very differently.”

The show tracks the 'fallout' for Beth and Ellen Gallagher

Much of the show takes place 15 years after the events of the film, with a new storyline in which Dan is released from prison after being found guilty of killing Alex. Dan tries to clear his name while repairing his relationships with his now-grown daughter, Ellen (Alyssa Jirrels), and ex-wife Beth (Amanda Peet).

The series begins with Ellen in therapy. Alexandra Cunningham, who co-created the show with Kevin J. Hynes, says she wanted to examine how a child recovers from the emotional trauma of murder, divorce and a kidnapping.

In the movie, “you never see a moment where anyone’s like, ‘Are you OK, Ellen? You need to see a child psychiatrist. How are you processing all of these things?’ “ Cunningham says.

The show also provides more depth to Beth, who has since remarried and refuses to shoulder the blame for any of Dan’s misdeeds. “It was nice to have that much more time to flesh out the story and track the fallout for the family,” Peet says. With Beth, “we wanted to explore the idea that she built something new on these ruins.”

'I'm not going to be ignored, Dan,' gets a new context

In one of the film’s more horrific scenes, Alex slits her wrists as Dan prepares to go home, accusing him of only using her for sex. In a similar argument in the third episode, Alex claims to have swallowed a bunch of pills. Dan immediately brings her to the hospital, where she recants her story before walking inside.

“We were trying to have it be more of an emotional manipulation, rather than it being about also hurting herself,” Cunningham says.

The show makes many other nods to the movie, from Alex and Dan’s erotic elevator encounter to Alex pouring acid on his car. Then there’s the classic line, “I’m not going to be ignored, Dan." In the film, Alex says it to Dan mid-confrontation after telling him she's pregnant. But in the show, she simply ends a frazzled voicemail with the now-famous quote.

“We wanted to keep as many of the iconic things about the film as we could, but try to make them organic to our storytelling,” Cunningham says. “What Glenn Close puts into that line just burns into you, and I could not resist the idea of having Lizzy say it.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Fatal Attraction' 2023: What's different from the Glenn Close film?