{"id":28843,"date":"2023-01-10T00:22:13","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T00:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/10\/how-the-grease-revival-expands-the-franchises-audience\/"},"modified":"2023-01-10T00:22:13","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T00:22:13","slug":"how-the-grease-revival-expands-the-franchises-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/10\/how-the-grease-revival-expands-the-franchises-audience\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Grease Revival Expands the Franchise’s Audience"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Showrunner and executive producer Annabel Oakes didn\u2019t want to revive Grease.<\/p>\n

When streaming service Paramount+<\/a> approached Oakes with the idea of creating a TV series based on IP from the 1978 film, her response was immediate. <\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018No! It\u2019s absolutely perfect. It\u2019s an important part of my and so many other people\u2019s childhoods. I am not interested in tearing this down,\u2019\u201d Oakes said during a Television Critic\u2019s Association Press Tour panel on Monday, held in person in Pasadena, Calif.<\/p>\n

But during a long cab ride in Southern California, Oakes researched the topic and discovered the Pink Ladies were once a real group. After that, the now-showrunner, who also serves as executive producer, writer and director of the series, began to reconsider.<\/p>\n

Oakes called her mother and her mom\u2019s friends, asking what it was like to be in school in the \u201950s and \u201960s, discovering a much different tale than previously thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started to get these amazing, beautiful, interesting and unexpected stories from people of all different walks of life,\u201d Oakes said, explaining she spoke to people ranging from \u201cpopular girls\u201d to \u201cradical lesbian feminists\u201d and people of all races.<\/p>\n

And once Oakes built out her writers\u2019 room, that research only expanded, and \u201ceverybody got excited about returning to the world of Grease and telling their stories,\u201d the showrunner explained.<\/p>\n

Grease has had revivals<\/a> before, but Oakes is making this one different, appealing to the franchise faithful and expanding to reach new audiences.<\/p>\n

Tell me more, tell me more<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Starring Marisa Davila, Cheyenne Isabel Wells, Ari Notartomaso and Tricia Fukuhara, Paramount+\u2019s Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies expands the original tales of the 1950s and dives into diverse storytelling around race and sexuality. The show\u2019s primary characters are mainly women of color and queer women, and the series explores what it meant to be marginalized in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAnnabel [Oakes] said the other day, this show is a love letter to the women of the \u201850s \u2026 it\u2019s also a letter to all the people who were not given the screen time in the original Grease, and really in media in general,\u201d said Notartomaso, who is gay and uses they\/them pronouns. \u201cI had a chance to speak to a woman who was alive in the 1950s, who was gay in the \u201850s and it was a wonderful experience for me to be able to ask questions about what it meant.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 10-episode long season will premiere on April 6 and drop new episodes on Thursdays, with the series taking place four years before the original film. And Oakes hasn\u2019t ruled out the potential for future seasons, possibly leading up to the original film itself. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur characters will get to experience from a different lens and how those experiences overlap with others with a marginalized identity,\u201d Oakes said. \u201cI think we have the opportunity to represent another struggle that overlaps with things we\u2019re dealing with today, like racism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show will feature 30 original songs, which work to pay homage to the canon while also honoring the diverse voices and storytelling of the new series.<\/p>\n

When asked whether the new series works to correct the movie\u2019s nostalgia, Oakes pushed back that the film actually \u201cwas trying to undermine the nostalgia of the \u201850s,\u201d pointing to high school dropouts and the \u201creal life\u201d that was going on in Grease.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re pushing forward or trying to do \u2018important work,\u2019\u201d said Oakes. \u201cWe\u2019re just doing the work of looking at what Southern California might actually look like and telling some of those stories that didn\u2019t have a chance to be told.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n