'Grease' Prequel Series Slides From HBO Max To Paramount+

Grease is the word over at Paramount+.

The CBS All Access streaming service is changing its name to Paramount+ early next year, and it has just picked up a new show to add to its roster. Grease: Rydell High, a prequel series set before the events of the 1978 classic musical starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, has received some rebranding of its own: the show is now called Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, and it is moving from HBO Max over to Paramount+.

A year ago, word came out that a prequel series called Grease: Rydell High had been ordered by WarnerMedia for its HBO Max platform. Now The Hollywood Reporter says the show has a new name – Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies – a new home at Paramount+, and a new concept to boot. The original plan for the show was for it to be "set in and around the world of Rydell High" and to "reimagine the global smash hit movie with some characters you already know, and a whole lot more you will soon meet." Now, as the new title indicates, it will focus on the rise of the jacket-wearing girl gang the Pink Ladies, and track how "Sandy, Rizzo, Jan, Marty and Frenchy came together and how the reverence, fear and moral panic they sparked changed Rydell forever."

Annabel Oakes (Awkward), who was on board in the early Rydell High days, is still on board as the creator/writer/executive producer for this revamped version of the show. Former WarnerMedia head Bob Greenblatt gave the show a straight-to-series order last November, but a major shakeup at that company has now put HBO's Casey Bloys in charge, and apparently he felt differently about this series, so HBO Max changed its mind and let the show go. But since it's being produced in part by Paramount Television, Paramount+ seems like a natural new home for the series.

Paramount Television is producing with Picturestart and Temple Hill, and weirdly, those three companies are also working on a Grease prequel movie called Summer Lovin', which inexplicably aims to tell the story of how Danny Zuko (Travolta) and Sandy Olsson (Newton-John) first met. Their whirlwind summer romance, of course, was already detailed in the original movie, leaving us wondering why it needs to be elaborated on at all. It's unclear if that movie will directly cross over with or tie in to this new Grease Rise of the Pink Ladies series.