Grease Rise Of The Pink Ladies Everything We Know So Far

Prequels have been a trend in pop culture since, well, forever. In this kind of series and film, we can see a glimpse of what happened in a world before the story that we already know and love happened. And, since making prequels has been a tendency lately, why not have a Grease prequel, too?

Seeing what happened in the Grease universe before the first film took place is the idea behind Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, an upcoming Paramount+ series. It will be a prequel to the musical rom-com released in 1978, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John as its protagonists. The film has a 1982 sequel, Grease 2, which stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Maxwell Caulfield as the film’s lovers.

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With that, let’s take a look at everything we know so far about Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies!

Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies: Plot

     HBO Max  

If you are a fan of the Pink Ladies – the group formed by Betty Rizzo (Stockard Channing), Jan (Jamie Donnelly), Marty Maraschino (Dinah Manoff), and Frenchy (Didi Conn) in the original Grease movie – you should be really excited about this series. As the title suggests, the upcoming series will focus on the rise of this social group at Rydell High School.

The story will take place four years before Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John) and Danny Zuko (John Travolta) meet on the beach, as we learn in the first movie. It will show how the rise of the Pink Ladies girl gang, with its members having fun and playing by their own rules, make a name for themselves while arousing moral panic in their school.

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This time, we will follow Jane, Olivia, Cynthia, and Nancy as they form the Pink Ladies during their teenage years while singing about it. Yes, to our delight, this will be a musical series!

Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies: Cast

     Paramount+  

Prepare yourself to meet the new faces of the upcoming series: during the series, we will meet a whole new group of actors playing the girl group from Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies! Paramount+ announced in January that four actresses will form the main group: Marisa Davila (My Big Fat Blonde Musical) will be playing Jane, Cheyenne Isabel Wells (The Late Late Show with James Corden) as Olivia, Ari Notartomaso (Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin) will be portraying Cynthia, and Tricia Fukuhara (Queen Pins, Only Children) will be taking on the role of Nancy.

Alongside the girls, we also have Chris McNally, Shannel Bailey, Madison Thompson, Johnathan Nieves, Jason Schmidt, Charlotte Kavanagh, and Maxwell Whittington-Cooper playing unannounced characters. More of the cast also includes Bette and Joan’s Jackie Hoffman as Assistant Principal McGee. Since these announcements, there have been no other news announcements about the series’ cast.

Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies: Production

     Paramount Pictures  

The series was firstly an HBO Max production titled Grease: Rydell High. The series’ storyline was to include big musical numbers, as in the movie of the same name, and bring its classical characters to the streaming era. Basically, a reimagining of the original, beloved Grease.

Annabel Oakes, who created Netflix’s Atypical, a comedy series about an autistic teenager, was hired to write the pilot episode, and there wasn’t much information besides it. But, in 2020, it was reported that the Grease series was sold to Paramount+. After that, the series was rebranded with the name that we know now and greenlit by the streaming service in July 2021. Paramount+ ordered a 10-episode run, with Annabel Oakes serving as its executive producer, writer, showrunner, and Erick Feig and Marty Bowen as the other two executive producers.

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It’s known that its production started in January 2022 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell how long it will take to film the ten episodes or how much time will be spent in its post-production.

Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies: Expected Release

There is good and bad news for those who can’t wait to watch Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies. While the series will premiere in 2022, Paramount+ still hasn’t shared an exact date of the series premiere. The production of a 10-episode series usually takes an average time of four to six months, and, as we already know that the series production started in January 2022, maybe we can expect an end of the year release date!

So, the good news is that we will get back to Rydell High School, meet the Pink Ladies’ original group and other new, exciting characters and sing with their catchy songs this year. However, we just do not know precisely when – and that is the bad news.