If it’s true to the spirit of the source material, HBO Max is about to make smoking, hot pants, bobby socks, drag racing, and changing everything about yourself for John Travolta cool for a whole new generation. The upcoming “direct-to-consumer†streaming service that isn’t HBO Now or HBO Go announced on Tuesday that it has ordered a musical series from Paramount Television called Grease: Rydell High, based on the 1978 family favorite that brought the term “pussy wagon†into the collective nightmare-subconscious. Unlike upcoming streaming teen musical adaptation series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, this spinoff won’t feature a time jump or entirely new set of Pink Ladies and T-Birds. According to HBO Max:
“[The] show reimagines the global smash hit movie with some characters you already know, and a whole lot more you will soon meet. It’s still the 1950s, a world that rocks with big musical numbers from the period combined with new original songs as well.â€
So yes, HBO Max is giving the youth everything they want: boomer ’50s small-town nostalgia. We don’t know any specifics about the series, its creative team, or its cast yet, besides an assurance that WarnerMedia exec Bob Greenblatt has “a genuine passion for musicals and Grease in particular.â€
Paramount Television also produced the 2016 Vanessa Hudgens showcase Grease: Live for Fox, which had good ratings, was a critical success, and was the most exposure Jessie J had had in years. So it seems like this Ur-text of American horny teendom is in good hands. In fact, months away from its 2020 launch, HBO Max is already establishing itself as a go-to online home base for delightfully inapropro teen-series spinoffs. Fingers crossed we get some sort of Carly Rae Jepsen–as–Frenchy representation. And until the first trailer comes out to give us a potent double dose of nostalgia and anticipation, here’s a terrifying, uncanny valley cash-grab collaboration between Sandy and Danny to tide you over: