‘10 Things I Hate About You’ Turns 25: Writers Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith Are Here for ‘Anyone But You’ Reviving the Modern Shakespeare Rom-Com

10 Things I Hate About You writers Karen McCullah and Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith have nothing but love for the surprise hit romantic comedy Anyone But You, which recently became the highest-grossing Shakespeare adaptation of all time, as a modern-day take on Much Ado About Nothing.

“[Anyone But You] is doing the Lord’s work,” Smith said with a laugh, in a recent phone interview with Decider. “It’s reviving rom-coms. It’s Shakespeare. We’ve got butthole singing. What more do we need?”

Her longtime writing partner, McCullah, agreed, and added emphatically, “Rom-coms are alive again. Thank god for that movie.”

But the writing duo isn’t opposed to a little competition, if, say—as several X users suggested in reaction to Anyone But You’s record-setting profits—Disney was to re-release their modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, aka 10 Things I Hate About You.

“C’mon Disney, let’s go!” enthused Smith. “Let’s do a 4K restoration!”

Twenty-five years ago today, in 1999, 10 Things I Hate About You opened in theaters. For many, it became the definitive teen romantic comedy. Julia Stiles starred as Katarina (aka “Kat”) the strong-willed, so-called “shrew,” whom Heath Ledger’s Petruchio (aka “Patrick”) must “tame” into dating him. Why? Because the new kid at school, Cameron (played by Joseph Gordon Levitt), as well as the school’s popular rich jock Joey (Andrew Keegan) want to date Kat’s pretty, preppy sister Bianca (Larisa Oleynik). Their strict father (Larry Miller) has a rule that Bianca can’t date until Kat does, so the boys scheme to pay the class bad boy, Patrick, to take out Kat. Obviously, shenanigans ensue, and Kat and Patrick end up falling in love for real.

McCullah and Smith cleverly translated the hijinks of a 400-year-old play to the politics of ’90s high school life, with some major changes, of course. Most notably, in Shakespeare’s play, the taming is a success, and Katherina delivers a closing monologue to her fellow women about the importance of obeying men. Not so in 10 Things. Kat’s punk rock, riot grrrl attitude is very much in place by the end of the film, and it’s Patrick who must grovel to win her back.

“In this kind of early ‘90s feminism, there was a lot of reclamation of words like ‘cunt’ and ‘bitch,'” Smith explained. “I think maybe we did that for ‘shrews’—turning it into an empowered and defiant dance, as opposed to a slur that you call a strong woman.”

McCullah added, “It didn’t seem like we were picking a misogynistic play. It seemed like we were telling a story of like, ‘Oh, these guys think that they can tame this girl. Isn’t that hilarious?'” She’s also not entirely convinced Katherina’s The Taming of the Shrew monologue is as sexist as it appears. “I think [it’s] very winky-winky. She’s telling the other women, ‘If you just go along with this, and let them think they won, you can do whatever the fuck you want.’ But I’m sure there are many British scholars who would disagree with me.”

Regardless, the writers found the Bard’s characters to be perfectly suited for modern teen life. “Shakespeare’s characters are always super gossip-y,” McCullah explained.”There’s always some type of shenanigans. There’s gossiping. There are people getting involved in business that isn’t theirs. It totally fits the mold for a high school.”

They were inspired by Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, a 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma that became a cultural phenomenon. McCullah and Smith spent months scouring the library for stories in the public domain that could translate into a modern teen movie, until a friend suggested they try The Taming of the Shrew. The 10 Things title, as reported in a 2018 BuzzFeed profile, came from a list McCullah had kept about an ex-boyfriend. The pair wrote the script on spec, Disney purchased it, and Gil Junger was brought on to direct. Stiles and Ledger—both relative unknowns at the time, with Ledger flying in from Australia—were cast in the lead roles, and brought a chemistry so electric that, according to Smith, it forever altered the genre of the film from “teen comedy” to “romantic comedy.”

“We always thought of it as a female-led teen comedy, an ensemble teen comedy,” Smith said. “It just speaks to the power of Heath’s performance, and the chemistry between him and Julia—how it created this fully beating heart of a romance—that people really remember it as a romantic comedy movie, almost more than an ensemble teen movie.”

People also remember Kat Stratford as one of several beloved teen girl protagonists—alongside Buffy Summers and Veronica Mars—who offered young girls a role model who unapologetically spoke her mind. The ’90s and ’00s were an exciting time for angry girl characters, because, as McCullah said, “a lot of teenage girls saw themselves for the first time—or a version of themselves they wanted to be: Someone who’s unafraid to say what she thinks and do what she wants.”

McCullah offered a theory as to why those beloved “angry girl” archetypes like Kat have fallen out of style: “All of the angry woman movies now are mostly dramas about, MeToo, or abuse—Women Talking or She Said. But it’s not treated as just a topic of everyday life in comedies. It’s now become more of an issue movie trait.”

Smith agreed, and added that Kat’s anger was a “weirder trait” back then. “Activism is a louder, grander, maybe sometimes more performative thing that’s going on, all the time. At the time that we created Kat, she was a little bit more on the fringe.”

Shortly after 10 Things, McCullah and Smith went on to create another iconic, though significantly less angry, female character: Elle Woods, from 2001’s Legally Blonde. It was an even bigger hit than their first film. The surprise success of Anyone But You, said Smith, reminds her of the way Legally Blonde took off. “There’s just something joyful about audiences discovering a mid-to-lower budget, character-driven, movie-star driven movie with fresh, unexpected stars in it,” Smith said. “It feels like it kind of comes out of nowhere, and the audience makes it their own. Which is the type of success that we felt with Legally Blonde—it takes studios by surprise, and hopefully reminds them that these movies are the movies that people really, truly fall in love with.”

There’s ample evidence now that modern Shakespeare adaptations fall under that category. 10 Things I Hate About You made $60.4 million at the global box office, which may not quite be the runaway success that Anyone But You enjoyed ($216 million worldwide), but was still definitely a success. (As McCullah pointed out, $60 million in 1999 dollars is closer to $113 million in 2024 dollars when adjusted for inflation — not to mention the untold millions the movie generated in rentals, DVD sales, and endless reruns on basic cable.) The writing pair, alongside co-writer Ewan Leslie, returned to the Shakespeare formula with another modern adaptation, She’s the Man, the 2006 Amanda Bynes-led comedy that retold Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Again, it was a hit, at the box office, in the home video market, and in high school literature classes across the country.

McCullah and Smith went on to pen Ella Enchanted (2004), The House Bunny (2008), and The Ugly Truth (2009). The pair also teased a new upcoming project with 10 Things producer Andrew Lazar, but declined to share any details. But they’ll always have a soft spot for their now 25-year-old first-born child, and the Shakespeare play that inspired its creation. So why have they not returned to the Bard for another modern-day adaptation?

“We were kind of naive and anti-corporate, anti-branding,” Smith explained. “We weren’t going to let this define us! We wanted to write other things—other kinds of genres and different ages.” But after seeing the money being raked in by Anyone But You, Smith conceded with a laugh, “We probably just should have merrily stayed on the Shakespeare train. But it’s not too late!”

“We’re taking suggestions [for Shakespeare plays], if you’d like to run a survey for your readers,” added McCullah wryly. “We have to find an obscure one that no one knows about.”