Its doubtful fans of Dirty Dancing will be having the time of their lives when they read this. Deadline has confirmed that Lionsgate are prepping a remake of the universally-loved, Swayze swoon-a-thon, Dirty Dancing.
High School Musical auteur Kenny Ortega (choreographer on the original film, incidentally) is onboard to director this tale of a 60’s teenager who comes-of-age during a yearly family jaunt to a Butlins-esque holiday park, and ends up falling for one of the resort’s hunky dancing staff, whilst performing the titular routine.
You may recall that both a short-lived TV series and a flaccid sequel were produced to capitalise on the original film’s incredible success (which mainly stemmed from a triumphant run on the home video market). With this in mind, news of a remake certainly comes as no surprise (although the makers are hedging their bets before learning of the box office outcome to the soon-to-be-released reboot of Footloose), but as the original Dirty Dancing is in many ways equal in admirable for a generation of female fans to that of something like Star Wars for a male audience, Lionsgate should be fearful of potentially stepping on sacred cinematic ground here.
