The ‘Grease’ Prequel Has Found Its Director
By George Robbins
Within the past couple of months it appeared as though the movie industry was starting to get back on track after essentially completely shutting down. Movie and TV productions are still moving forward now that the production side of the industry is back up and running again. Even so, it appears as though many production teams are going to have a rough time getting back to work especially with the new tiered coronavirus testing that has been put in place. This system makes it so that only those who are in the worst condition will get tested first to see if they have the virus while those who are symptomatic or have only come into contact with an infected individual will be last to be tested. In order to get back to work, production crews must be tested to make sure no one has the virus.
Without the knowledge of whether members of the crew are good to resume production or not, there are going to be nothing but delays for those productions. Beyond productions are the films and shows that are already finished and are waiting to be shown to the public. Shows have no problem because TV and streaming services have been available this entire time, but movies are a whole other story. There are plenty of movies that have been ready to release that cannot simply due to the fact theaters cannot open their doors to the public. The reason as to why they can’t open their doors is a bit more complicated however because of the second wave of Covid-19 that hit many states in the United States. It is now starting to seem like an everlasting cycle that theater companies and studios are going through to see releases hit the big screen.
Studios will not release their films to theaters because it is too dangerous given how many people have contracted the virus recently in the United States. Theaters cannot open at all due to this fact so they are stuck chasing after release dates hoping they will be allowed to reopen as soon as possible. Things have gotten to the point where Warner Bros. is thinking of just releasing films like ‘Tenet’ overseas before a domestic release until things settle down. Even though everything sounds terrible right now, it really isn’t all terrible because some new movie news is coming out as of late. Things like the ‘Uncharted’ film having actually started production and now, things like finding out that the ‘Grease‘ prequel, titled ‘Summer Lovin” now has a director.
The hit musical movie from the 70’s saw the blossoming love of a “greaser” and a prim and proper school girl in their senior year of high school in the late 1950’s. The film was based on the 1971 musical of the same name and the movie went on to have a sequel simply titled ‘Grease 2.’ One of the plot points in the original film is that the two main characters met while on summer vacation and went on to meet each other again when the school year began. It is during this summer vacation that they fell in love in the first place and the prequel will focus on this period in time. Director Brett Haley will be taking the helm with the project so that whenever they are able to actually start working on the film, they can start without issue.