It’s 35 years since the original Dirty Dancing shimmied its way onto the big screen, and now a sequel to the much-loved film is in the works.
Jennifer Grey – who played Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman in the cult classic – has been confirmed to star in the new movie.
Film studio Lionsgate announced the news during their presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, according to Entertainment Weekly.
A short video was shown to the audience of industry insiders, incorporating footage from the original film and a voiceover announcing, “Jennifer Grey returns to Kellerman’s in the next chapter”.
Kellerman’s is the name of the summer resort where the action of Dirty Dancing takes place, and Baby transforms, with the help of a few dance classes.
Grey is about to release a new biography titled Out of the Corner – a reference to the film’s famous line: “Nobody puts Baby in the corner…”
Patrick Swayze, who played dance teacher Johnny Castle in the first film, sadly died from pancreatic cancer in 2009, aged 57.
Both Grey and Swayze could dance before being cast in the first movie and had previously worked together in 1984 action film Red Dawn.
The original inspired several spin-offs, including a brief TV series in 1988 and a 2004 prequel Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights which starred Swayze, but was only loosely linked to the original. The film was not a box office success.
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In 2017, ABC produced a TV movie featuring Abigail Breslin and Nicole Scherzinger. It was not well received.
Certainly, none came close to repeating the box office success of Dirty Dancing, which earned $64m (£50.9m) from just a $6m budget (£4.74m), and won an Oscar for Best Original Song for (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life.
There has been a successful stage version which has toured the world.
Grey is also understood to be an executive producer for the film. No release date has been announced.