Debra Martin Chase’s next film, Dirty Dancing remake, looking for int’l buyers at CannesPosted by Wilson Morales
May 11, 2012
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
With a couple of months away before the remake of Sparkle is released, producer Debra Martin Chase’s next production, a remake of 1987’s Dirty Dancing, is headed for Cannes, where it will be shopped for the first time to foreign buyers.
Lionsgate International is handling international sales on the film, which Lionsgate opens in the U.S. on July 26, 2013. The cast has yet to be announced.
Kenny Ortega is directing the updated movie will hit theaters 26 years after the first Dirty Dancing opened in August 1987, becoming a runaway blockbuster and catapulting Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze to fame. Ortega (High School Musical) was a choreographer on the original film.
Martin Chase is producing Dirty Dancing along with Ortega and Alli Shearmur. Brad Falchuk (Glee) and Maria Maggenti wrote the script, which is based on the original film’s screenplay by Eleanor Bergstein.
In speaking with Blackfilm.com last year, Martin Chase stated that “With ‘Footloose’ coming out in October, and although ‘A Star is Born’ with Beyond has been delayed for now, the American audience have rediscovered the musicals. With the phenomenal success of ‘Glee,’ ‘High School Musica,l’ ‘Chicago’ and ‘Hairspray,’ it’s pretty clear that people loved them and want more. Just in general, Hollywood is looking to break titles and beloved stories and seeing if there’s a way to freshen them and appeal to the people who loved them and also have something fresh for the people who are discovering them for the first time and ‘Dirty Dancing’ falls in that category.”
Ortega’s film will pay tribute to the classic tale of Baby’s forbidden summer romance with Johnny Castle, while incorporating classic songs from the 1960s, hits from the original film and new compositions.
Dirty Dancing is part of a flurry of movie titles making their debut at the Marche du Film in Cannnes.
