Dirty Dancing to Receive Modern Remake

Dirty Dancing will dance in the footsteps of Fame and Footloose to become the latest 1980s dance movie craze to get a fresh new modern remake. Lionsgate today announced their intent to produce the project and is handing the keys over to a man who shaped the original’s moves.

Kenny Ortega, whose name should be familiar to many as the director of Michael Jackson’s This Is It, will direct the new Dirty Dancing for Lionsgate. Ortega’s career will come full circle on the project as he was the choreographer on the original 1987 hit which starred Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze.


Eleanor Bergstein, who wrote and co-produced the original Dirty Dancing, is in discussions with Lionsgate to be a producer on the remake. Her involvement would further the bond between the two films.

You might be wondering, “why Dirty Dancing?” Apart from the fact that remakes of proven properties are a hot trend in Hollywood, the Dirty Dancing brand is as strong as it ever was. The Facebook page for Dirty Dancing currently has over 10.5 million fans. To put that in perspective, that is almost 3 million more than The Dark Knight has.

The Dirty Dancing Facebook page probably picked up millions of “likes” in the aftermath of Patrick Swayze passing away. According to Lionsgate, the page has added 1.5 millon fans in the last three months alone. The Footloose Facebook page hasn’t reached 250,000 “likes” yet.

Lionsgate has yet to commit a release date for Dirty Dancing 2.0. The earliest I’d expect to see it in theaters is 2013.

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