There are Grease 2 fan sites, anniversary screenings, Comic Cons and sell-out West End productions based on it. Earlier this year, comedian Scott Aukerman asked the internet if Patrick Swayze had a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ part in the film (he didn’t) and sparked a debate on whether one of the characters is, in fact, a ghost (unconfirmed). Every so often, a comment or event will rally the Grease 2 troops. It’s a rare day when you can look at the #Grease2 hashtag on Twitter and not find someone declaring their ‘controversial take’ that it’s the better movie, posting a meme of Michelle Pfeiffer flicking up the collar of her Pink Lady jacket or debating the film’s feminist credentials. It might have a 32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and frequently appear in lists of the worst sequels – but it also has an army of fans willing to argue to the death that it is, in fact, “The Empire Strikes Back of the Grease movies.” And yet in the almost four decades since its release, Grease 2 has emerged as a cult favourite. The film was critically mauled, and – aside from Michelle Pfeiffer, who was likely on her way to great things anyway – it didn’t propel anyone to stardom. Despite having almost twice the budget of the first film, it barely made back its costs. Even so, Grease 2 didn’t just fall short – it flopped with gusto. Matching the success of an original is a tall order for any sequel – particularly to a film as huge as Grease, and especially when you’re attempting it without the star power of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, but with a new, mostly unknown cast. (At one point there were plans for a four-film franchise and a spin-off TV series.) So it seemed a no-brainer that Paramount Studios should decide to produce a sequel. On a budget of $6m, Grease made back ten times that in just one month (and would go on to gross $400m). ![]() The film that exposed our misogynistic culture ![]() A few years earlier, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II – which won the Academy Award for best picture – suggested that sequels could even improve on the original. By then, film-goers were growing accustomed to successful movies spawning sequels, and Hollywood was relying on them to hook in an audience already sold on the original. Although the musical would go on to become the highest grossing film of that year, it was beaten at the box office in its opening weekend by Jaws 2 – the follow-up to Spielberg’s hugely successful shark-attack horror. When Grease was released in cinemas in 1978, its producers were all too aware of the power of a sequel.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |