Saved by the Bell movie to reveal behind-the-scenes scandals

A movie centering on the off-camera lives of the six young stars of Saved by the Bell is in the pipeline and looks set to be a scandalous peek behind-the-scenes.

The hit 90s comedy followed the amusing adventures of a group of friends and their Bayside High principal but occasionally touched on issues such as divorce, drug use and death.

But while Zack, Kelly, Screech, Slater, Jessie and Lisa were fresh-faced and squeaky-clean on screen, Dustin Diamond wrote a tell-all book in 2009 about the reality of life on set.

The US actor, who played the nerdy Screech, told how everyone in the cast was sleeping together bar him, including having threesomes, and many of them were trying drugs.

Now, The Unauthorised Saved by the Bell Story, loosely-based on Diamond's revelations, is to become a film brought to life by Lifetime.

Robin Lippin, Saved by the Bell's original casting director, was enlisted to choose the actors who will play the cast's real-life counterparts.

She cast Sam Kindseth as Diamond, Dylan Everett as Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zack), Julian Works as Mario Lopez (Slater), Tiera Skovbye as Elizabeth Berkley (Jessie), Taylor Russell McKenzie as Lark Voorhies (Lisa), and Alyssa Lynch as Tiffani-Amber Thiessen (Kelly).

A fair few rumours have circulated about the original cast of Saved by the Bell, including that Gosselaar was dead and that Diamond was in a porn film.

Gosselaar is still very much alive and still acting but the latter is indeed factual as Diamond played the lead in the 2006 X-rated movie Screeched.

- Independent