Following much speculation surrounding “Life-Size 2,” Variety has exclusively learned that Tyra Banks will reprise her role as Eve in the sequel to the 2000 flick, which is officially in development and in consideration for an upcoming Disney Channel original movie.
“There is no one else that can play Eve but me, thank you very much!” Banks tells Variety exclusively. “I’m just joking with you, but yes, I am going to be Eve.”
In addition to starring, Banks — whose long-running reality competition “America’s Next Top Model” airs its final episode Friday night — will also serve as an exec producer, as previously reported.
As for further casting, at this point, Lindsay Lohan, who starred in the original movie, has no involvement. Banks says, “We have not talked about casting at all so I have no idea who is going to be the young person that will be the owner of Eve. We haven’t gotten to that.”
The original made-for-TV movie “Life-Size” centered around a Barbie-like doll, Eve (played by Banks), who comes to life when a young grieving girl (Lohan) accidentally casts a spell, in an effort to resurrect her late mother. The fantasy comedy came as an 11-year-old Lohan broke into superstardom, following “The Parent Trap” and before pop culture phenomenons “Freaky Friday” and “Mean Girls.”
Banks has long spoken about the TV movie follow-up, but Disney has never confirmed the project until now. Back in 2012, Variety first reported on the sequel and Banks’ casting, but the project sat on the shelf for years, as insiders say Disney has been re-working the script to make sure its just right. Now, the “FabLife” host — who recently announced she’s majorly scaling back her role on the daytime talker — says with re-writes, the network is eyeing a late 2016 premiere.
“I think it will be 2016,” she says. “We’re looking at it as a holiday movie so hopefully holiday 2016. One thing is it’s a very precious project to the Disney Channel so they’ve been doing a lot of re-writes and making sure that this script is really right. I’m really excited about it. I think ‘Life-Size’ is so popular that it can be a feature film because it has such a cult following, so I’m really interested to see what the ratings are going to do for that. I think it’s going to be a blockbuster on TV.”
Back in 2014, Banks spoke about the potential sequel during an interview on “Watch What Happens Live,” saying, “We’re doing ‘Life-Size 2.’ This time I’m executive producing it and we’re in the process of writing it, At the time, Disney had not commented on any sort of official development.
Source: Variety
