Last year, HBO Max ordered a straight-to-series Grease spinoff based on the original John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John film from 1978. Now Paramount+ has snagged the series for its own and made some changes along the way. The new ViacomCBS streamer has rebranded the film as Grease: Rise of The Pink Ladies, changing it from the original title Rydell High.
Variety reports the reason for the move lies in HBO Max’s new Chief Content Officer Casey Bloys decision to not move forward with the project. When the show was originally announced, WarnerMedia Entertainment chairman was Bob Greenblatt showed a lot of enthusiasm for th eproject, saying it would be a “‘High School Musical’ kind of experience.”
With Paramount Plus taking over, the show could go in a different direction. There’s still talk of the new streamer trying to get rights to songs from the original Grease to use in Rise of the Pink Ladies, which would really stir up the nostalgia.
ViacomCBS has been steadily announcing some of the originals that will appear on Paramount+ ahead of its 2021 launch, including a spy drama by the creator of Yellowstone and a scripted series about producer Al Ruddy’s experiences making The Godfather. The new originals, including the previously announced Spongebob series Kamp Koral, will join the existing lineup of over 20,000 episodes and movies spanning all of ViacomCBS’ brands. Leading up to the launching of Paramount+, CBS All Access will continue to add content and will have 30,000 episodes and movies while developing new original series.