It was a film based on a stage musical based on an article in Playboy magazine. It starred Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton. People liked it, to the extent that it was nominated for a handful of Oscars and Golden Globes, even though Parton crowbarred her 1974 hit I Will Always Love You into it.
And now, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is back! Courtesy of Universal pictures, who have set Legally Blonde and House Bunny writers Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith the task of updating it. The Twilight Saga's Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey are producing.
The plot of the original saw Sheriff Reynolds and Madame Parton teaming up to protect the titular (no pun intended) house of not-so-ill repute from a TV evangelist's campaign to shut it down. Not un-controversial in 1982, the film was forced to replace "whorehouse" with "cathouse" in the title in some states. Parton used "chickenhouse" in interviews, referring to the real-life Chicken Ranch that was the subject of the Playboy piece and the basis for the whole show.
Universal, according to Variety, are planning a complete overhaul of the project, so even though it's definitely still a musical, we're not sure if the songs remain the same. I Will Always Love You in particular, has kind of now been claimed by Whitney Houston and The Bodyguard. But it was actually a Parton original, and not in the stage version, so, fingers crossed, the new version can live without it.