Unauthorized ‘Saved By the Bell’ Movie Coming to Lifetime This Fall
Lifetime will premiere the TV movie The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story, which tracks the off-camera lives of the stars of the hit Nineties comedy, on Monday, September 1st at 9 p.m., according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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The film will explore the challenges the cast members faced as they juggled growing up and maintaining a flawless image all while in the limelight — in other words, get ready for some serious hard-hitting, made-for-TV melodrama. With any luck, the movie will follow their lives long enough for us to see what really happened when Screech (Dustin Diamond) beat the crap out of Welcome Back, Kotter‘s Horshack (Ron Palillo) on Celebrity Boxing.
The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story was cast by the original TV show’s casting director, Robin Lippin, and stars Dylan Everett (Degrassi: The Next Generation) as Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Sam Kindseth (Shameless) as Dustin Diamond, Julian Works (Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones) as Mario Lopez, Tiera Skovbye (Supernatural) as Elizabeth Berkley, Taylor Russell McKenzie (Blink) as Lark Voorhies and newcomer Alyssa Lynch as Tiffani-Amber Thiessen.
While Diamond’s 2009 memoir, Behind the Bell, exposed some of the alleged behind-the-scenes shenanigans — sex! drugs! — taking place during the show’s initial run between 1989 and ’93, Buzzfeed reports that the new TV movie was put together using information and stories obtained during hours of new interviews.