Elle (TV series)

Elle is an upcoming American comedy television series created by Laura Kittrell and Caroline Dries, serving as a prequel to the Legally Blonde franchise. The series explores the high school years of teenage Elle Woods (originally portrayed by Reese Witherspoon), set to be portrayed by newcomer Lexi Minetree.

Elle
Genre	Comedy
Created by	Laura Kittrell Caroline Dries
Based on	Legally Blonde by Amanda Brown
Showrunners	Laura Kittrell Caroline Dries
Starring	Lexi Minetree June Diane Raphael Tom Everett Scott Chandler Kinney Gabrielle Policano Jacob Moskovitz Zac Looker
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
Production
Executive producers	Laura Kittrell Caroline Dries Reese Witherspoon Lauren Neustadter Josh Schwartz Stephanie Savage Lauren Kisilevsky Marc Platt
Production companies	Hello Sunshine Fake Empire Marc Platt Productions Amazon MGM Studios
Original release
Network	Amazon Prime Video

The series is helmed by showrunner Kittrell and is executive producing alongside Witherspoon and producer Marc Platt. Production began in April 2025. It is slated to premiere in 2026.

Premise

A prequel to Legally Blonde, the series explores Elle Woods’ teenage years in the 1990s as a high school student, long before she became the ambitious Harvard law student in the films.^[1]

Cast

Main

• Lexi Minetree as Elle Woods
• June Diane Raphael as Eva Woods, Elle's mother
• Tom Everett Scott as Wyatt Woods, Elle's father
• Chandler Kinney as Kimberly
• Jacob Moskovitz as Miles
• Gabrielle Policano as Liz
• Zac Looker as Dustin

Recurring

• Jessica Belkin as Madison
• Logan Shroyer as Josh
• Amy Pietz as Donna
• Lisa Yamada as Amber
• Chloe Wepper as Ms. Burke
• David Burtka as Chad
• Brad Harder
• Kayla Maisonet as Tiffany
• James Van Der Beek as Dean Wilson

Production

Development

As a planned Legally Blonde 3 languished in development hell, in April 2023, it was announced that after acquiring MGM, Amazon had plans to expand the Legally Blonde franchise with a television series in development.^[2]

On May 14, 2024, Amazon Prime Video announced a new upcoming 2025 prequel series, Elle.^[3][4][5] In a statement, Reese Witherspoon, who hosted the announcement, said that viewers "will get to know how Elle Woods navigated her world as a teenager with her distinct personality and ingenuity, in ways that only our beloved Elle could do."^[3]

In January 2025, Witherspoon said in an interview that she was inspired to create the spinoff series after watching Netflix's Wednesday series starring Jenna Ortega. "I saw that Wednesday Addams show and I was like, 'Oh, she was in high school.' I loved it. I watched every episode. I thought it was amazing," Witherspoon said. "And I was like, 'We should do Elle Woods in high school because I wanted to see who she was before college, before law school. And I started having all these ideas and these amazing writers came up with a great pitch and now Amazon is making the show and it's called Elle."^[6]

Casting

In February 2025, newcomer Lexi Minetree was cast as Elle Woods, a role originally portrayed by Witherspoon in the original films; Minetree had been among the finalists during the casting process for the new series.^[7]

In March, June Diane Raphael and Tom Everett Scott were cast as Elle's parents, Eva and Wyatt. In that same month Chandler Kinney, Gabrielle Policano and Jacob Moskovitz joined the cast as Kimberly, Liz, and Miles.^[8][9][10] In April, Zac Looker, Jessica Belkin, Logan Shroyer, and Amy Pietz joined the cast as Dustin, Madison, Josh, and Donna.^[11][12] In May, Lisa Yamada, Chloe Wepper, David Burtka, Brad Harder, Kayla Maisonet, and James Van Der Beek joined the cast in key recurring roles.^[13][14]

Filming

Principal photography began on April 2, 2025.^[15]

Release

Elle is expected to be released in 2026.^[16]