Film

Dirty Dancing sequel announced 33 years after original

Jennifer Grey, who played Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman, to return for film

Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey portraying Baby Houseman in a scene from the film Dirty Dancing. Photograph: Lionsgate Home Entertainment/AP

Catherine Shoard
Fri Aug 7 2020 - 16:04

An official sequel to the hit summer romance movie Dirty Dancing has been announced, 33 years after the first film was released.

Jennifer Grey, who starred in the original as Frances "Baby" Houseman, whose summer camp is enlivened by an affair with her slinky-hipped dance teacher, Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze), will return for the film, it has been confirmed.

Swayze died in 2009 of pancreatic cancer, aged 57.

Grey will also be an executive producer on the project. Little about the film’s plot is known, but it will be directed by Jonathan Levine (50/50, Warm Bodies).

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Lionsgate chief executive officer Jon Feltheimer said: “It will be exactly the kind of romantic, nostalgic movie that the franchise’s fans have been waiting for and that have made it the biggest-selling library title in the company’s history.”

The original film made $214 million (€181.7 million) at the global box office from a $6 million (€5.1 million) budget and has had a prosperous second life on home entertainment platforms.

The film’s key song, (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life, won an Oscar and a Golden Globe. The climatic scene in which the couple dance to the song, culminating in an impressive lift, became a fixture of pop cultural reference.

A Secret Cinema immersive screening first played in 2016 and was due to be on its London lineup in July 2020 but has been postponed by a year.

In 2004, a spinoff film, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, starring Diego Luna and Romola Garai, set in 1958 Cuba, was released to moderate reviews. – Guardian

Jennifer GreyPatrick Swayze