Grease: Rydell High Musical Spinoff Series Coming to HBO Max
Tell me more!
HBO Max, the upcoming streaming service owned by WarnerMedia, has ordered Grease: Rydell High, a musical series inspired by the 1978 hit movie, Grease.
The series will be set in and around the world of Rydell High, the high school where greaser Danny Zuko (John Travolta) and innocent transfer student Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John) fell in love all over again after meeting over the summer.
The show will reimagine the movie “with some characters you already know, and a whole lot more you will soon meet,” a press release teased. “It’s still the 1950s, a world that rocks with big musical numbers from the period combined with new original songs as well. It’s the peer pressures of high school, the horrors of puberty, and the rollercoaster of life in middle America with a modern sensibility that will bring it to life for today’s musical lovers.”
RELATED: Breaking Down All the Upcoming Streaming Services — Including Their Prices and Hit New Shows
“Grease is an iconic pop-culture phenomenon that works for every generation, and I’m thrilled that our friends at Paramount were excited about the idea of opening up the show and putting it on a larger canvas for a weekly series,” said Sarah Aubrey, head of original content, HBO Max. “This is high school and life in small-town USA told on the scale of a big rock’n’roll musical. It’s Grease 2.0 but with the same spirit, energy, and excitement you immediately think of when you hear any of these iconic songs.”
Said Nicole Clemens, president of Paramount Television, “Grease is one of the most beloved Paramount titles and it’s a thrill to be re-imagining it for today’s audience with our good friends at Temple Hill and Picturestart. When [WarnerMedia chairman] Bob Greenblatt called about bringing it to television, we knew we would be in the perfect hands because of our great working relationship with HBO Max and Bob’s genuine passion for musicals and Grease in particular.”
A premiere date for Grease: Rydell High has yet to be announced. HBO Max is expected to launch in the spring of 2020 and will exclusively stream shows like Friends and The Big Bang Theory, as well as the upcoming Gossip Girl reboot.
RELATED: PEOPLE Celebrates Grease‘s 40th Anniversary with Special Issue
Reflecting on the iconic movie’s 40th anniversary last year, Travolta, 65, and Newton-John, 71, confirmed they’re still good friends.
“We text!” Newton-John told PEOPLE. “We did something life-changing, making that film. I feel grateful to have worked with him.”
Temple Hill, Picturestart and Paramount Pictures are also developing a feature film prequel to Grease, titled Summer Lovin’.
