Grease (franchise)

In 1958, wholesome Australian immigrant Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John) enrolls at Rydell High School in a vaguely suburban locale, and finds herself classmates with her summer fling: Danny Zuko (John Travolta), a greaser who turns out to be much more arrogant than he was when they first met that summer. Danny and Sandy each find themselves adopting more of the other's character traits, with Danny becoming a runner for the school and Sandy slowly falling into the influence of the Pink Ladies, an all-girls greaser gang led by the cynical Betty Rizzo (Stockard Channing). Several prominent subplots include Danny helping his best friend Kenickie (Jeff Conaway, who had played Danny in the Broadway musical) build his used car Greased Lightnin' into a hot rod capable of beating a rival gang's car in a street race, and bubbly Pink Lady Frenchy (Didi Conn) trying to figure out her academic future.

In 1961, Stephanie Zinone (Michelle Pfeiffer) is the leader of Rydell High School's Pink Ladies, a gang of girls who are counterparts of the school's group of greasers called the T-Birds. Stephanie is tired of her relationship with top T-Bird Johnny Nogerelli (Adrian Zmed), so she breaks up with him and quickly catches the eye of English exchange student Michael Carrington (Maxwell Caulfield). Hoping to win her over, Michael tries to overcome his nerdy ways while holding off the jealous Johnny, mainly by learning how to ride a motorcycle and taking on the secret identity of the "Cool Rider."

The directorial debut of V. Ravichandran, Premaloka adapted Grease 2 for an Indian audience (along with elements of The Sound of Music, on suggestion of the film's composer and unofficial co-director, Hamsalekha).[3] For the lead actress, Ravichandran rejected 52 actresses before choosing Juhi Chawla for the role originally played by Michelle Pfeiffer.[4] Apart from composing music, Hamsalekha additionally wrote the lyrics for all songs and dialogues for the film.[5][6]

In 2003, Olivia Newton-John confirmed that a second sequel to Grease was being developed. "They're writing it, and we'll see what happens. If the script looks good, I'll do it. But I haven't seen the script, and it has to be cleverly done." [7] In 2008, it was reported that Paramount was planning a new sequel to Grease that would debut straight to DVD.[8] In April 2019, Paramount Pictures announced that the project had been redeveloped as a prequel film titled Summer Lovin', with John August serving as screenwriter. The project will be a joint-venture production from Paramount Pictures, Paramount Players, Temple Hill Productions, and Picturestart. Receiving its tile from the song, the plot will center around the summer in which Danny and Sandy met and fell in love.[9] By July 2020, Brett Haley was hired to serve as director with the most recent draft of the script being written by Leah McKendrick.[10]

Grease: Live! is a television special that was originally broadcast by Fox on January 31, 2016. It was a live, televised remake of the 1978 film Grease, executive produced by Marc Platt, directed by Thomas Kail, and starring Julianne Hough, Aaron Tveit, Vanessa Hudgens and Carlos PenaVega. Patterned on similar live television musicals that had recently been produced by NBC, the production incorporated elements and songs from both the original stage musical and the 1978 film version of Grease, as well as additional songs and a few elements (such as changing Sandy's last name to Young to reflect Hough's own background) that were not present in either. In an effort to emulate the "energy" of a theatrical setting, live audiences were incorporated into the production's stagings. Grease: Live was broadcast from Warner Bros. Studios, utilizing two soundstages and the studio's outdoor backlot—the usage of the latter was notably affected by rain in the Los Angeles area on the day of the broadcast.[11][12]

A co-production between Venevisión and Boomerang, the telenovela Grease: It's You and Me aired from June 27, 2007 to November 17, 2009. Its pilot episode had approximately 5.9 million viewers,[13] while the series finale had an audience of about 9.8 million, the largest audience received by any final episode of a series of Boomerang Latin America.[14][15][16][17]

In August 2009, Boomerang announced that Vladimir Perez, the creator of Grease: It's You and Me,[18] would be making a spin-off following the unprecedented worldwide success of the original series, which would cross over into a different genre, the sitcom, to bring their fans fresh adventures full of comedy and music, titled ICB: It Can't Be!.[19][20] ICB It premiered on July 22, 2011.[21]

In September of 2019, a musical television series was announced to be in development titled, Grease: Rydell High. The show was ordered straight-to-series, and will release exclusively on HBO Max. The project will be a joint-production between Paramount Television, Picturestart, and Temple Hill Entertainment. Erik Feig will serve as producer for the show. The series will be an adaptation of the original film with returning and new characters, as well as new and old songs.[22] By April 2020, Annabel Oakes was hired as writer and executive producer for the series.[23] In October 2020, the series' title was changed to Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies and was moved from HBO Max to Paramount+.[24]