The Bad Seed Is Getting Remade, Will Become A TV Movie

Lifetime has done extremely well with TV movies in recent years. Made-for-TV efforts like Whitney and others have been major ratings winners, prompting Lifetime to take even more stabs at new programming. Today, the network announced it will be reworking the popular flick The Bad Seed.

If you’re not familiar with The Bad Seed, it was initially a novel written by William March published way back in the fifties. Its popularity led to a movie being made in 1956, and a subsequent TV movie in the 1980s. The new, Lifetime version will center around a mother named Kate who is both a career woman and a loving homemaker. Unfortunately, she can’t have it all. And the reason she can’t is because her daughter is a sociopath--smart, dangerous and intent on killing. The bond between a mother and her child is often unbreakable, but a mother and a monster is something altogether different.

THR reports that Exorcism Diaries writer Barbara Marshall will pen the script for the new Lifetime original. Warner Horizon Television is behind the production. It’s currently unclear whether or not The Bad Seed will end up airing during Lifetime’s 25th anniversary, which is being celebrated this year, but if there's one way perfect way to celebrate such a milestone, you would think it would involve an evil child and terrifying consequences.

The year kicked off with Whitney, the unauthorized biography looking at famed singer Whitney Houston’s life during the years she spent with Bobby Brown. A whopping 4.5 million total viewers tuned in for that original movie on the night it premiere, which may not seem like a lot, but for Lifetime, those numbers are more than respectable. Subsequent productions, including the Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell original A Deadly Adoption, have also done well, generating both big numbers and a ton of chatter on social media.

The Bad Seed isn’t the only original the channel has coming up. A couple of months ago, Lifetime announced that it will also be producing a Full House biopic-style flick, in the same vein as The Unauthorized Saved By The Bell story. The female-centric network certainly knows its audience, and hopefully The Bad Seed will prove to be a numbers bringer when it eventually hits the schedule.

Fortunately, success is a pretty decent bet. Lifetime is always very good about advertising its movies hard, and with all the recent success, there is plenty good will toward the network right now among fans, at least as the made-for-TV movies go. With a beloved source work and a plot that involves insane drama, a lot of people will definitely tune in. Here's to hoping they get a product that's everything they'd hope for and more.

Jessica Rawden
Managing Editor

Jessica Rawden is Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. She’s been kicking out news stories since 2007 and joined the full-time staff in 2014. She oversees news content, hiring and training for the site, and her areas of expertise include theme parks, rom-coms, Hallmark (particularly Christmas movie season), reality TV, celebrity interviews and primetime. She loves a good animated movie. Jessica has a Masters in Library Science degree from Indiana University, and used to be found behind a reference desk most definitely not shushing people. She now uses those skills in researching and tracking down information in very different ways.